I REALLY MISS THE PLACE

 

I really miss the place

Where I journeyed into this world

Where a loving mother

Kissed me and gently brushed my curls

 

I really miss the place

Where mother taught me the joys of life

And my father

Taught me to seek harmony from strife

 

I really miss the place

Where my school days first began

And those friends

That made up our inseparable band

 

I really miss the place

Where my heart had an optimistic view

And I miss the face

Of my one and only love so true

 

I really miss the place

Where summer days seemed without end

Where nature’s bounty

Spilled from the fields we had to tend

 

I really miss the place

Where the bones of my parents lay

And the times

When our days were full with play

 

I really miss the place

I knew before I grew into a man

And took up arms

To fight for the King in a foreign land

 

I really miss the place

That is the home I shall never see again

Never smell the grasses green

Or taste those gentle summer rains

 

I really miss the place

My distant home far across the sea

The place I left behind

So I could die fighting for the free

HMS IOLAIRE

 

On New Year’s Eve 1918

The Iolaire carried sailors

Veterans of the Great War

Back home to the island of Lewis

But as they approached Stornoway

As the New Year dawned

She struck "The Beasts of Holm"

And sank in the darkness

205 souls perished in the depths

They survived the horrors of war

Only to drown in the waters of home

LORD KITCHENER SAID IN HIS FRUSTRATION

 

Lord Kitchener said in his frustration

Of the indiscreet Politicians and their lives

When you tell one of their number a secret

They went home and told their wives

With the exception of David Lloyd George

Who went home and told everybody’s wives

THE RAF SEEK OUT THEIR TARGETS

 

The RAF seek out their targets

On recognisance missions

Brave young men

Flying beyond enemy lines

Armed with nothing more than cameras

They make pass after pass

Taking shot after shot

Before returning home

With their precious load

When the photo interpreters

Of Medmenham

Enhance the images

With their stereoscope’s

To create a 3D picture

For detailed analysis

By the boffins

Who identify a target

For more brave young men

To bomb the sites

Of the vengeance weapons

NAZISM WAS LIKE A CANCER

 

Nazism was like a cancer

Spread across the continent

And when Hitler was defeated

It was not a cure, for the cancer

Was merely in remission

RED ARROWS

 

Red Arrows way up high

In tight formation fly

Weaving patterns across the sky

So, pleasing to the eye

RED COATS

 

The bayonets gleaming

In the sun

The piper’s pipe

The drummers drum

Red Coats forming

Up the square

The sound of battle

Everywhere

Though far outnumbered

In the field

They do not waver

They do not yield

The men

From borough and shire

The thin red line

Of the empire 

THE NOT SO GREAT WAR

 

“Your country needs you,” said Kitchener

You’re needed to fight them over there

 “It will be over by Christmas,” they said

But it was just getting started instead

In the cold trenches on Christmas morn

The guns remained silent after the dawn

Soon forgetting the horrendous conditions

Men began emerging from their positions

The opposing soldiers met in no man’s land

Then smiled and shook their enemy’s hand

Briefly at peace both sides felt regrets

Then they exchanged gifts of cigarettes

A day without a single shot fired at all

They even got to play a game of football

Sadly, the men returned their own way

They began killing again on Boxing Day

THE RED DUSTER

 

The British merchantmen

Fly the “Red Duster”

And you will always see

The red ensign flutter

WHETHER THEY MAY WIN OR LOSE

 

Whether they may win or lose

Or whether they think its right

Our soldiers don’t get to choose

Which wars that they fight

THE FLOWERED FIELDS OF FLANDERS

 

The flowered fields of Flanders

Where met many a gallant enlistee

War visited its hell upon the earth

Turning them to a muddy bloody sea

HMHS GLENART CASTLE

 

The Glenart Castle

Was steaming home

On a cold February night

In 1918

The hospital ship

Headed for safe haven

Her lights green

Clearly visible

Against the dark horizon

Red lamps lit her side rail

Her masthead light burned bright

Fishermen could see her

Red Cross light

Then a torpedo struck her

In the number the hold

In eight minutes

She was gone

With 162 souls

THE RED ENSIGN

 

The unsung heroes sail

Under the Red Ensign

The tell-tale flag flown

By British merchantmen

KUBLAI KHAN’S MONGOL HORDE

 

Kublai Khan’s Mongol horde

Set Sail In 1274

To conquer Japan

And add it to his empire

But the great deity Raijin

Conjured up a typhoon

And his Divine wind

Destroyed the Khan’s fleet

And saved the Japanese

But in 1281

They sailed again

The largest fleet every assembled

Four thousand ships

Carrying 140000 men

But when they were off the shore

Once again Raijin

Brought the Kamikaze

And scattered the fleet

To the four winds

And thwarted Kublai Khan

And he never tried again

RED POPPY

 

Stand silent

And bow your head

Remember with pride

All the fallen dead

Who paid the price

And for their nation bled

Remember them

And wear the poppy red

IN HALIFAX NOVA SCOTIA 1917

 

Two ships collided in Halifax harbour,

The Mont Blanc and the Imo,

It was December 1917

And what the Nova Scotian’s didn’t know

Was the French ship was laden with explosives

And as it sailed the straight from the sea

It struck the Norwegian vessel

Causing it to explode cataclysmically

Many Canadians were killed

In Halifax Nova Scotia 1917

After the largest man made explosion

The world had ever seen

WHY IS IT THAT THE NATIONS FLAG?

 

Why is it that the nations flag?

Appears to mean much more

To the soldiers who fight for it

Than the people they’re fighting for

DON’T HATE THE HUN ACROSS THE FIELD

 

Don’t hate the Hun across the field

He’s not so very different to you

He doesn’t want to fight in foreign wars

 

He wants to be in the loving embrace

Of the sweet woman he loves

As you want to be in the arms of yours 

WANDERING WARRIOR

Wandering warrior

Migrating hero of the good

Fights for God and king 

BOMBER COMMAND

 

At last they are remembered

In marble and bronze

In Green Park they stand

The forgotten band of brothers

Silent yet speaking aloud

Of honours unsung

These brave men

Held in contempt

By the very politicians

Who sent them to their deaths

Shunned by Churchill

In the cold light of peace

These forgotten heroes

Of an unpopular campaign

These warriors on the wing

They didn’t question

They didn’t ask why us

They went where they were sent

And half never returned

ALONG A WAR-TORN ROAD

 

Weary leaden footsteps

Tramp the war-torn road

Ragged with fatigue

The endless serried ranks

Of weary ragged lads

Stout of heart

March, not in retreat

But ever onward to the foe

 

WHY IS IT THAT THE FLAG?

 

Why is it that the flag?

Means more to those who fight for it

Than it does to the people

Who sent them to fight for it

NO MANS LAND

 

No man’s land,

A desolate place

An unforgiving place

Where stout hearts

Chill and falter

To glimpse at hell

 

Doom awaits us there

On that alien field

Where death falls like rain

In shrapnel shards

And bullets speak

Of whispered demise

 

No man’s land,

A desolate place

Where men drown

In mud, blood and tears

Blood shed for country

Tears shed for kin

IT’S THE SIMPLE SOLDIER

 

It’s the simple soldier

Who serves the flag

It’s the simple soldier

Who salutes the flag

It’s the simple soldier

Who fights beneath that flag

It’s the simple soldier

Who dies beneath that flag

And it’s the simple soldier

Carried shoulder high

In a coffin draped by the flag

GOD AND THE SOLDIERS

 

We look to God and the soldiers

Mostly during times of war

But when peace again descends

They are both forgotten like before

IT WAS THE LOWLY SOLDIER

 

It was the lowly soldier

Not the journalist

Who won their right

To freedom of the press

 

It was the lowly soldier,

Not the lofty poet,

Who won for them

Freedom of speech

 

It was the lowly soldier

Not the politicians

Who secure for all of us

The peace

DAWN PATROL

 

You would find them

Up where the air was thin

And the cold burnt

The wood and canvas kites

Prowled the skies

Searching the clouds below

For the enemy silhouettes

And when sighted below

To attack from the sun

And deliver their chattering death

MISSING YOU

 

We want you home at Christmas

We want you to spend it with us

But we understand the reason why

And we promise to try not to cry

We will spend Christmas on our own

Until you come marching safely home

Uncanny Christmas Tales – (018) An Ardennes Christmas

 

The next time you’re whining on about what a crap Christmas you had, because your mother in law over did it on the sherry and told everyone what she really thinks about you, or when your wife’s Uncle Stan spent Christmas afternoon asleep on the sofa breaking wind with monotonous regularity, or your brother’s new girlfriend, who kept hitting on your wife or your Gran who said “just a small dinner for me I don’t have much of an appetite” then spent the afternoon eating all the chocolate Brazils.

If this strikes a chord think again and spare a thought for the half a million or so men of the allied forces and six hundred thousand Germans who spent Christmas 1944 outside in the snow of the coldest winter in a generation in the Ardennes forest during the battle of the bulge.

Men like my father sheltering in foxholes scratched out of the frozen earth with no hot food or drink, unable to light fires for fear of giving their position away and regularly coming under enemy fire or being shelled, then once you’ve hewn out a decent sized foxhole and settled down into it out of the icy wind an order comes down the line for everyone to move out and you move a hundred yards or less and dig another hole.

Go and tell your petty gripes to that generation and see if you get any sympathy.

 

HE MADE SUCH A HANDSOME OFFICER

 

She was so proud of him

When she saw him in his uniform

He made such a handsome officer

Like everyone she was caught up

In the patriotic fervour

She wasn’t concerned about the war

“It’ll be over by Christmas” everyone said

He would soon be home again

So she revelled in the beauty 

Of her gallant hero

And she waved him off to war

She was so in love

With her officer beau
and that moment lived long

In her memory

It was her last memory of him

For the war wasn’t over by Christmas

And he wasn’t home again