Two Great Uncles

Two great uncles

Two great uncles who I never knew

Got killed whilst serving in world war two

One died somewhere in Italy

And the other in a ship was lost at sea

My Grandad (their elder brother) was told

When he volunteered that he was too old

So he signed up for the Home guard instead

And at night as bombers flew overhead

He lay and waited for morning to come

With his wife (my Nan) and daughter (my Mum)

In the daytime he worked in Stratford and Bow

Delivering coal and he got to know

A man with connections and in a back street

He paid a bit extra for black market meat

Then he went home to his daughter and wife

And that’s how he spent the war years of his life

Now I wonder what he must have felt.

How did he deal with the hand he was dealt?

Striving to keep his family fed

All the while knowing his brothers were dead

If not for my Mum I’d never have known

Of those two Great uncles whose lives were blown

Away with other young men in their prime

Who fought for our lives in that terrible time

Long after the war my Grandad died

I remember him being a man of pride

A salt of the earth whose daughter wife

And grandchildren seemed the joy of his life

He lived with my Nan in a two up two down

On a council estate in Dagenham Town

The same house he’d lived in during the war

And where mum was born a few years before

About the young brothers he said not a word

Like I said it was only through mum that I heard

What’s related above is a story she told

Forgetting their names now she’s grown old

So here’s my tribute for what it’s worth

To a man whose past gave rise to my birth

A nod of remembrance to what he went through

And the two Great uncles who I never knew