Somewhere Over the Rainbow

It didn't occur to me until I was walking home from work today that seeing a rainbow in the stormy sky yesterday afternoon was actually wonderfully apt. With it being Remembrance Day today, my thoughts turned to my Grandad, who served in the RAF during WWII, and whose favourite song was Over the Rainbow by Judy Garland. During the war, his plane was shot down and, according to Grandad, he sang this song as it descended the sky. He survived the crash and spent the next few years as a prisoner of war in Germany, in conditions I have difficulty imagining. He gave us small snapshots of what it was like when we were children, but being so young I couldn't fully comprehend the magnitude of it and now my memories of his stories are faint. I'm certain that so many grandchildren feel this way - I wish I could speak to him now that I am older to try and understand and learn from what he experienced. It's strange because I remember knowing back then, as I listened to him describing his past to me, that I would feel like this now. I do still hold an image in my mind of Grandad returning home after the war, weak and shockingly thin, a stark contrast to the Arthur his family would have remembered. In spite of this, Grandad recovered and he went on to raise two wonderful daughters and live long enough to see his grandchildren through their childhood. So as well as remembering his service in the War,  this is how I'll remember Grandad:

He loved being outdoors in the sunshine - in the summer he would sit for hours under the shade of a tree, reading his books.
Whenever he could, he would listen to classical music.

He loved birds - there would always be a collection of well stocked bird feeders dotted around his garden.

He had a talent for 'magic' tricks - as children he would inexplicably pull sweets and coins out of our ears, which naturally scored him major brownie points!

He was a great story teller - he must have been good because he made a story involving a robin and cucumber sandwiches seem like the best thing ever!

Who are you remembering today?

C

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