General Chat

Not easy to read, (maybe not the thing to read at bedtime either) but required reading this (maybe tomorrow?) . . .

Dulce et Decorum est (written in 1917 and published posthumously in 1921) is a poem by World War I soldier Wilfred Owen. The work's horrifying imagery has made it one of the most popular condemnations of war ever written.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/
Dulce_et_Decorum_est_(Stallworthy_edition)

(Edit: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori = How sweet and right it is to die for one's country)

On a smaller scale, women have had to cope with the loss of their menfolk in other ways too. Fishermen or lifeboatmen have been lost and it affects the whole area where they come from, sometimes father and son or brothers lost to a woman and it means they had no wage earner anymore.

Women have to be resilient otherwise where would their children be? Life just has to go on despite the heartbreak and financial changes.

My paternal Grandfather (who died before I was born) came back from the First World War with a piece of shrapnel in his head, it caused him a lot of pain but he just had to get on with it and earn a living (he was a carpenter and made the village coffins, helped by one of his sons.) My Father never talked much about his family and we didn't know many of them well as tehy lived in a different county and didn't have a car. A few years ago, after my father died, a cousin of his was telling me things about the family and she said my poor old Grampy died in great agony when the shrapnel moved in his head and caused him to collapse. He was in hospital for several days apparently, must have been an awful end.

Respect to him and all those who suffered.

Lizx