MY grandfather was not prone to sentimentality. Overt demonstrations of feigned emotion would usually be met with a short rebuke along the lines of ‘what a load of b*****ks’.
Much of this, no doubt, was just who he was. Some of it, however, must have been born from his experiences.
On June 6, 1944, at the tender age of 18, he parachuted into Ranville, Normandy. The next few months saw him fight across France and Germany, suffering life-threatening wounds along the way and losing his closest friends, particularly his mate Frenchie, which stayed with him till his dying days some 77 years later.
