Another soldier's tale.
Tami has been telling us all about her son's graduation at Parris Island and it has been very interesting to see the videos.
My brother joined the army at the tender age of 16 and had an interesting first week: he received a telegram telling him 'Mother and daughter are doing well.' What the powers that be didn't know was this was the birth of his younger sister. I gather he received much ragging about this. The very same baby caused some interesting reactions in my life too. When she was just a few months old, my parents sold the farm we lived on in South Wales and we moved to the Cotswolds. Whilst the sale of all the stock went through I was sent to my aunt together with Harriet. It made it all easier for mum and dad to deal with the sale.
My aunt was a 'pillar of the community' and at the time ran a clinic for young mums. (Are you beginning to guess what happened?) Of course I went along with Harriet in arms and just acted as normal. Apparently, the village thought I was her mother (at 14!) and we had come to live with my aunt to get away from the disgrace. I was so innocent I only found out about this quite recently.
A young baby caused a lot of merriment in the family that year - and she still is!
My brother joined the army at the tender age of 16 and had an interesting first week: he received a telegram telling him 'Mother and daughter are doing well.' What the powers that be didn't know was this was the birth of his younger sister. I gather he received much ragging about this. The very same baby caused some interesting reactions in my life too. When she was just a few months old, my parents sold the farm we lived on in South Wales and we moved to the Cotswolds. Whilst the sale of all the stock went through I was sent to my aunt together with Harriet. It made it all easier for mum and dad to deal with the sale.
My aunt was a 'pillar of the community' and at the time ran a clinic for young mums. (Are you beginning to guess what happened?) Of course I went along with Harriet in arms and just acted as normal. Apparently, the village thought I was her mother (at 14!) and we had come to live with my aunt to get away from the disgrace. I was so innocent I only found out about this quite recently.
A young baby caused a lot of merriment in the family that year - and she still is!
posted by Liz at 20:24
3 Comments:
What a delightful story! I hope your parents move was a good thing for all of you.
It is good to hear that you are enjoying my videos :)
Tami, it gets even better - there is a story that he had to give orders to a group of men (?platoon - I never know the proper names) and gave the order to change direction on the wrong foot and so they just kept marching away!!! Harriet might well come in with the correct version of this, but I love the idea of seeing your group of men marching into the distance!!
Don't know that one Sis, but I know I caused chaos from Day One!
I do know that our dear Brother got told to squarebash some unfortunate squaddy who'd upset someone, but as he'd managed to get out of doing it himself for years, had to stand there on the square reading the orders from a drill manual! Don't know which of them was the most unfortunate! He'd been in for about 20 years by then!
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