The older I get the more I realise (and this is confirmed by my wife!) that I am becoming my father. Increasingly I find myself thinking his thoughts, using his phrases, sitting as he used to sit, seeing the world through his eyes and each morning, as I look at myself in the mirror as I shave, I realise that it is his face that stares back! At one time I would have been horrified by this prospect but now it seems perfectly natural and reasonable – at least to me - and in many ways I am quietly pleased. My father, although a humble man and someone with whom I did not develop a close relationship with until later in life, was, I believe, someone to look up to. I once read that it is the destiny or responsibility of every son to be better than his father. I don't know if that is true but I do know that if I can be the sort of man my Dad was then I will be satisfied.
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| Dad and me in the mid fifties |
My father died about five years ago, my mother having died two or three years earlier. I have always regretted that I did not have the close father/son relationship with him that some enjoy. He was a long distance lorry driver and often away for much of the week and on top of that when he was at home there were frequent rows about money which coloured my childhood, which still haunt me and sadly made relationships difficult within the family. The opportunities for Dad and I to do things together were limited and for me that was a great sadness; although I loved my mother, even at my young age, I was aware that she was a difficult woman and that my Dad couldn't really win - whatever he did. We did, however, occasionally go to the cinema – him and me. I would have liked my mother to have come as well but she wasn't one for the cinema so it was usually just us two. As the years have passed those cinema trips with Dad have become more important to me and if one of these old films is repeated on TV I'm a sucker for it - it takes me back to the darkened cinema, to the heavily made up usherette ( a real woman!) selling ice creams, to fish and chips on the way home and to that shared couple of hours with my Dad.
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| On at the local 'Flea Pit!'. Little did I know that over 50 years later I would be reading the story and still be 'hooked'! |
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| The Queen's where dad and I saw many films including 'A kid for two farthings'. It had been a cinema since the Great War but by the mid-sixties changed from being a family cinema to one showing "X" rated films and renamed itself the Continental. It is now a Punjabi Temple reflecting the make up of the local inhabitants |
I have often reflected that it is by such quietly whispered words or casual conversations over the tea table that children learn right and wrong, or learn of the things that their parents aspire to and expect of them: in short they learn to be grown up. My Dad's words that night in the darkened cinema have remained with me - I can still hear him today sixty years later; I didn't think of it in these terms but looking back they told me of things that I should value and that my Dad valued - fairness, honesty, thought for the underdog, of not being a bully and of not being big headed. And, his words did it in a far more effective way than a lecture or telling off would ever have done. Maybe I'm reminiscing through rose coloured glasses but I can still, too, remember the quiet kindly wisdom and wonderful voice of David Kossoff playing Mr Kandinsky, the Jewish tailor, as he talked to little Joe about life and death when Joe’s 'unicorn' finally died - as we all knew it would. I knew that Mr Kandinsky was everything that one should be, unlike the thoroughly unpleasant "Python" and I knew it was so because the film told me and more important my Dad did. It was, like the rest of those cinema trips with Dad, one of those growing up things - hours that were few but still today, much treasured!
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| What a hero! |
I mention all this by way of introduction. My daughter was aware of my love of old films and knew that I had especially enjoyed, all those years ago, seeing 'The Cockleshell Heroes'. (also see my blog: ‘Balance Sheet or Basic Humanity’). I was about ten at the time. And this year my daughter bought me, for my birthday, a copy of the book (by Quentin Rees) retelling the story of the Cockleshell Heroes. This is not a novel - but a tightly researched and hugely detailed biographical account of the military operation and the people involved. I am not much of a military man and abhor all war but on this occasion was engrossed.
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| The greatest western ever made - say I! |
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| The book of the film - I can remember buying it after I'd seen the film |
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| Blondie Hasler |
I was also humbled to read of the men on the mission. Ordinary men who simply volunteered for 'a hazardous mission' as it was called. Young men from very ordinary backgrounds – some of them no more than boys not long out of school. They put their complete trust in Hasler – even when he told them that the chances of a safe return were pretty slim and gave them the opportunity to drop out. None of them did drop out. One of the men, Eric Fisher, had been a complete non-swimmer when he volunteered for the mission and had to be taught! Unfortunately as his canoe was being winched, in the dark, out of the submarine it was damaged and could not be used. He and his fellow paddler were therefore not able to go on the mission – as he stood on the submarine deck watching his comrades paddle off into the darkness it is recorded that he broke down and sobbed uncontrollably so distressed was he at missing out on the venture. In the event, his swimming lessons bore fruit – he became an underwater frogman! Eric, a humble print machine minder in civilian life survived the war but took part in several highly dangerous operations and then returned to his former occupation - minding printing machines. All very matter of fact!
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| Hasler and Sparks in their cockle |
There were a number of other touching stories – copies of the last letters that the men wrote home – Hasler insisted that they did this although at the stage they wrote them they did not know what the mission was. The letters were handed to the submarine commander for delivery as the men left the submarine. One man's letters in particular stand out – those written by 20 year old Robert Ewart. He wrote to his young girl friend Heather. In his rather old fashioned, looped handwriting he told Heather that if he didn't return she should “........not take it too hard, you have your life to live, think of me as a good friend and keep your chin up, some lucky fellow will find you who has more sense than I do and who can get you what you deserve........I’ll say cheerio and God be with you. Thanking you and your mother from the bottom of my heart.” Robert also wrote to his family. ‘Dear Mum, Dad and Brothers..........As you know I volunteered for a certain job which I trust you will learn about at a later period. I've enjoyed every minute of it and hope it will help to end the war and make it a decent and better world...........I’ll be like a bad penny and turn up; so please don’t upset yourself over my safety. My heart will be with you always, you are the best parents one could have. Anyway, Mum, you can always say you had a son in the most senior service, and though I say it myself, I might be 'one of twelve heroes'. No matter how hard I try I don't see many young soldiers of today writing such mature, unassuming and sensitive letters - but perhaps I'm wrong - I hope so.
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| Robert Ewart |
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| Bill Sparks |
Both letters are much longer than I have quoted but humbling in the matter of fact way they are expressed and in the use of language from a very ordinary young man. Both gave me food for thought of the differences with today – these young men just accepted their danger as part and parcel of life. It’s worth noting that Robert’s wish for his girl friend didn't come true. Robert was caught by the Germans and executed in a wood at 3 o'clock in the morning on December the 11th 1942. He had been interrogated but gave no clues as to the mission in order that the rest of his comrades should be protected. Heather was only fifteen years old and shortly after Robert’s execution German radio announced that several British commandos 'have been slaughtered in France'. This was reported in the Portsmouth newspaper and Heather read it. She immediately became ill, suspecting that one was Robert, although she had no knowledge of where he was or what he was doing. She was ill in bed by Christmas. In January 1943 Robert’s parents were officially informed that he was missing and presumed dead. When Heather learned of this she plummeted further into despair and over the next few months she simply declined. Eventually she caught tuberculosis and died later in 1943 – almost a classic case of a 'broken heart'.
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| Part of Robert Ewart's letter to Heather |
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| My birthday gift |
The operation was ultimately successful – but at a cost. Of the twelve men who had been involved six were caught and executed, two were lost and believed drowned in the Gironde estuary, two did not take part because of the damaged canoe – and both survived the war – and two, Hasler and Bill Sparks survived, escaped through France to Spain and returned safely home. It was a high price to pay – but Churchill felt it a worthwhile price – he often said that he believed the damage caused to the ships in Bordeaux harbour plus the inconvenience that it caused to the German military machine probably shortened the war by about six months.
As I said above, I am not a military man and have reached the stage where Hollywood type war films and the posturing of modern politicians offends me – this is, it seems to me, the glorification of war. But reading the book and thinking back to the film that I watched as a ten year old all those years ago reminded me of the higher values that these soldiers seemed to have. I am not naive – war has always been terrible, violent and unpleasant. People behave in ways they would not normally do in peace time. But it seems to me that the sort of quiet values that were portrayed in the films of the era – 'A Kid for Two Farthings', 'Shane', 'High Noon', 'King of the Khyber Rifles', 'Genevieve', 'The Dam Busters' and the rest spoke of a way of behaving, a set of values and an attitude to life that we have perhaps lost. And, it seems a lot like the sort of quiet values, dignity, manners, respect, empathy with others, common humanity, maturity, the will not to give in when the going gets tough, pride and bravery that were displayed by the men of Operation Frankton – the Cockleshell Heroes.
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| Mr Nasty - Python Macklin - I really hated him! |
As I have mentioned in a previous blog ('Coming to a street near you.......a shrieking orgy of fake tan, false lashes, fights, booze....' ) I found a photograph last year in the newspaper showing an American GI - but it could equally have been a British Squaddie - in Iraq sitting, tired and exhausted. I found the photograph offensive and spoke volumes about how our attitudes have changed. On each finger of his hands was tattooed ‘F**K YOU’ – it saddened me to see a 'professional' soldier, not an unwilling conscript, proud to display this. I find it equally or perhaps even more offensive that his superiors permitted him to display this vulgarity and that we as a society accept that it is "alright". I don't somehow see Robert Ewart or Bill Sparks, or Eric Fisher being proud to display the same motto - nor do I think Hasler would have allowed them to do so. I don’t think that Gary Cooper, as he played the brave marshal in 'High Noon', or Alan Ladd as he stood up for what was right in 'Shane' would have portrayed this image. I can, however, in my mind’s eye, picture brave Marshal Kane hero of 'High Noon' writing the sort of letter to his young wife before he went out to face the Miller gang that Robert Ewart wrote to his girl friend before he set off in his little 'cockle' - never to return. In my mind’s eye I can picture the brave Sam in 'A Kid for Two Farthings', as he climbed into the wrestling ring knowing he was going to be savagely beaten by Python Macklin, being just the sort of young man that Blondie Hasler would have been looking for to be part of his 'hazardous mission' – and Sam would have joined it without a thought! I can believe that the sort of words and quiet reasoning that the injured Shane, after the gunfight with Jack Wilson, used to young Joey when he explained to the boy about how he should grow up straight and tall and look after his Ma and Pa were just the sort of words that Hasler and Sparks would have used when they modestly talked about their adventures on their return home. They didn’t see it as bravery - just a job to be done in a dignified, quiet, unassuming, mature and professional way - just like Shane. The film heroes and the real life heroes represented the best that we can aspire to. They put their own safety and life on hold while they attended to these greater matters. They had a quiet acceptance of what they had to do and how they had to do it. They were the perfect role models - not at all like the role models we present to the young today - foul mouthed and often violent sports stars driven by money; shallow celebrities; films where violence is the focus rather than honest deed and honourable action.
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| But I loved him - Marshal Kane explains to his young wife that a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do! |
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| Bobby Jones - loved and respected for the life he lead - and he was also a fairly good golfer! |
In that context I am reminded of two quotes one from my Dad and one from journalist Alistair Cooke. In one of his 'Letters from America' (March 2002 – to commemorate the birth of the American golfer Bobby Jones) Cooke said 'Bobby Jones was not only the best player in the world, probably the best there has ever been, but the most attractive sports hero of the day. Even by people who knew no golf, he was idolized on both sides of the Atlantic for his god-given combination of flashing good looks, wry humour and unflagging modesty. He became, and remained until the day of his death, the First Gentleman of Golf'. I have no interest in golf or golfers but it seems to me that what Cooke was describing was the sort of hero and celebrity that we have lost. It is perhaps relevant to also mention that Jones, at the height of his fame, was diagnosed with an incurable and progressive wasting disease causing paralysis. Jones’ only comments on this were: 'Well now, let's not talk about it. We play the ball, you know, as it lies'. And to his golfing friends: 'I don’t think I will be playing with you boys for some time'. Alistair Cooke described Jones as '...kind and genial, without affectation to friends and strangers; and always looking out for the shy one in the corner.' Cooke made the point well – Jones was loved, admired and respected firstly for his qualities as a human being and only secondly for his golfing prowess – people wanted to be like him because of the virtues he displayed not for his stardom - a very far cry, perhaps from how we perceive our heroes today. No matter how much I try I cannot see the same verdict being passed on Wayne Rooney or a thousand other professional sportsman - that they were loved for their virtues as human beings.
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| Shane - the ultimate hero - explains to little Joey about the nature of heroism! |
In fact, going back to my earlier points – Jones, it seems to me, represented the sort of values and behaviours epitomised by Shane, Marshal Kane, Blondie Hasler, Robert Ewart, Mr Kandinsky, Bill Sparks and the rest – be they real or fictional.
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| The harbour as Hasler and Sparks left it in December 1942 - iron ships laid low by iron men in their little wooden cockles |
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| Hasler and Sparks return in happier times to Bordeaux to see again the harbour where they reeked such damage |
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