Messymascot's faith in humanity and ginger safe haven


Good morning all on this dark and rainy day here in Finland . I hope all slept well and have a great day .We watched Bloodlands ,well the first 3 episodes ,we had actually watched the first and for some reason stopped ,I like James Nesbitt and we watch anything we find with him in it . Very nervous about the game tomorrow and as well as I hope we win for the supporters I hope we win for Frank .A hard and sharp lesson for a man learning his trade . If the fans turn he will be out as his results won't keep him . COYB
 
Morning all. Remembrance Day today which set me thinking of Methuselah as seem to remember his wedding anniversary was around this date, also the date of Nik’s church service @roydo, you will both be in my thoughts. I used to be big on wearing the poppy etc and had crosses placed in the Garden of Remembrance at Westminster. My grandparents between them lost four brothers and one taken prisoner, who by all accounts suffered quite badly and wished he hadn’t survived. I was quite happy to donate for the crosses and poppies but was subsequently bombarded (no pun intended) with requests to sponsor flags, bunting, for DDay, VE day, VJ Day, the list was endless. The last straw was receiving a phone call asking if I would remember them in my will, I said No thank you, please don’t ask again only to receive another phone call when my Mum was near the end again asking if I would remember them in my will, I know they were only doing their job but I’m afraid I lost it and told them that was it, no more. Still feel slightly guilty walking past the poppy sellers though. I‘ll do my own remembrance in my own way. Sorry for the rant so early in the day. Have a good one, all. ?
 
Morning all. Remembrance Day today which set me thinking of Methuselah as seem to remember his wedding anniversary was around this date, also the date of Nik’s church service @roydo, you will both be in my thoughts. I used to be big on wearing the poppy etc and had crosses placed in the Garden of Remembrance at Westminster. My grandparents between them lost four brothers and one taken prisoner, who by all accounts suffered quite badly and wished he hadn’t survived. I was quite happy to donate for the crosses and poppies but was subsequently bombarded (no pun intended) with requests to sponsor flags, bunting, for DDay, VE day, VJ Day, the list was endless. The last straw was receiving a phone call asking if I would remember them in my will, I said No thank you, please don’t ask again only to receive another phone call when my Mum was near the end again asking if I would remember them in my will, I know they were only doing their job but I’m afraid I lost it and told them that was it, no more. Still feel slightly guilty walking past the poppy sellers though. I‘ll do my own remembrance in my own way. Sorry for the rant so early in the day. Have a good one, all. ?

You have a good memory! Yeah, Nikki was remembered a year ago on Weds this week, and it was the same date as @Methuselah wedding anniversary.
 

Morning all. Remembrance Day today which set me thinking of Methuselah as seem to remember his wedding anniversary was around this date, also the date of Nik’s church service @roydo, you will both be in my thoughts. I used to be big on wearing the poppy etc and had crosses placed in the Garden of Remembrance at Westminster. My grandparents between them lost four brothers and one taken prisoner, who by all accounts suffered quite badly and wished he hadn’t survived. I was quite happy to donate for the crosses and poppies but was subsequently bombarded (no pun intended) with requests to sponsor flags, bunting, for DDay, VE day, VJ Day, the list was endless. The last straw was receiving a phone call asking if I would remember them in my will, I said No thank you, please don’t ask again only to receive another phone call when my Mum was near the end again asking if I would remember them in my will, I know they were only doing their job but I’m afraid I lost it and told them that was it, no more. Still feel slightly guilty walking past the poppy sellers though. I‘ll do my own remembrance in my own way. Sorry for the rant so early in the day. Have a good one, all. ?
My Dad said almost exactly the same thing. He used to support them but the constant demands for money became too much. I gave up buying a poppy in 2015 when this was reported
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/6...-Navy-heroic-veterans-Festival-of-Remembrance
Thousands of merchant sailors lost their lives in WW2. As you know my Dad spent his whole working life in the Merch so I donate to the Merchant Navy Association instead. I always love the way Everton include a Merchant Navy representative at the wreath laying at Goodison. Man Utd didn't have one last night
 
My Dad said almost exactly the same thing. He used to support them but the constant demands for money became too much. I gave up buying a poppy in 2015 when this was reported
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/6...-Navy-heroic-veterans-Festival-of-Remembrance
Thousands of merchant sailors lost their lives in WW2. As you know my Dad spent his whole working life in the Merch so I donate to the Merchant Navy Association instead. I always love the way Everton include a Merchant Navy representative at the wreath laying at Goodison. Man Utd didn't have one last night
Not only is that so sad it’s absolutely disgusting. I saw something once I think on an antiques programme, where they did a piece on a young lad who was the youngest casualty of WW2, he was in the fishing fleet, he was only 14. My Dad was in the Royal Navy, he joined at 16 in 1944, he had to have his parents’ permission. His Dad had been a regular in the Royal Artillery, joining as a boy of 12, his father had also been a regular in the RFA. Grandad was desperate for my Dad to join the army too but Dad had other ideas as he wanted to go to sea and failed the entrance exam. He never admitted whether he did it on purpose.
 
My nephew wrote this about my dads 31/2 years as a POW ,


WB
Lance Bombadier, 5th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery - British Army
Captured by the Japanese Army in February 1942 in Singapore, in what Winston Churchill described as the “the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history.”
Wally was held as a Japanese Prisoner of War from February 1942 to August 1945. He spent the majority of his PoW time at the Kinkaseki Camp in Taiwan, where conditions were horrendous. Approximately one in every three Far East POWs would die in captivity during the course of the war. Lest We Forget.

The following excerpt explains the conditions in the camp (courtesy of www.powtaiwan.org)
On November 14, 1942 in the village of Jinguashi, located on the northeast coast of Taiwan, 523 allied POWs began what was to be for some a three year ordeal as slaves in the largest copper mine in the Japanese Empire. In all more than 1100 British Commonwealth and Allied prisoners of war slaved in this notorious Japanese POW camp called KINKASEKI from December 1942 to March 1945.

The men had arrived in the camp after a journey of some three weeks on the hellship England Maru which brought them from Singapore following several months as POWs there after the island surrendered to the Japanese in February 1942.

The POW's in this camp were forced to slave in the dark depths of a copper mine and were subjected to the most inhumane treatment imaginable. Conditions in the mine and the camp were as bad, if not worse in many cases, than that experienced by the POW's on the now-famous Railway of Death in Burma and Thailand, which was made popular by the movie "Bridge on the River Kwai".

Daily the men were forced to march up the hill behind the prison camp and down the other side of the mountain to enter the mine. From there they walked approximately 1 1/2 kms inside the mine to the areas where they laboured. Just getting to and from the mine was a huge effort considering the poor physical condition of the men. They were forced to work deep in the mine in places so hot and dangerous that the local Taiwanese and Japanese miners refused to go there. If the men did not meet the quota of work set out for them at the beginning of the day by the Japanese, they were lined up along the walls of the mine shaft and beaten with the hardwood handles of the mining hammers until they were black and blue with bruises and bleeding.

As in all of the POW camps, the food was insufficient and this led to many types of diseases resulting from lack of food and vitamins. Dysentery, pellagra, beri beri, ulcers, pneumonia, diptheria and many other ailments took their toll on the men. Add to this the lack of medicines - and those that were available were often withheld by the Japanese, so that the doctors in the camp had a very hard time trying to keep the men alive. Many men died in the camp and when others became too sick and weak to work in the mine any longer, they were moved out to other camps and replaced by more fit men. This occurred several times during the three years the POWs slaved in the mine.

In early March 1945 the Kinkaseki mine was closed because the ore could not get out to Japan for processing as the allied navies were sinking all of the Japanese convoys. It was decided then to move the men to a camp further inland and one was set up in the mountains south of Taihoku (Taipei). In mid-May the first group of POWs left Kinkaseki and later in May and June the rest of the men moved to this new camp called Kukutsu. They remained here in deplorable conditions until the war ended in August.
 

My Dad said almost exactly the same thing. He used to support them but the constant demands for money became too much. I gave up buying a poppy in 2015 when this was reported
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/6...-Navy-heroic-veterans-Festival-of-Remembrance
Thousands of merchant sailors lost their lives in WW2. As you know my Dad spent his whole working life in the Merch so I donate to the Merchant Navy Association instead. I always love the way Everton include a Merchant Navy representative at the wreath laying at Goodison. Man Utd didn't have one last night
Very disappointing reading that Anj. But I'm guessing that was probably a decision taken by some pompous up his own arse idiot at the top of the RBL food chain.

Generally I think the RBL do some fantastic work, especially in helping with bereavement and the mental health of veterans. I don't know what happened with the above event, but I'm sure the Merchant Navy quite rightly take full part in Remembrance Day events, something that only started relatively recently I think.
 
Not only is that so sad it’s absolutely disgusting. I saw something once I think on an antiques programme, where they did a piece on a young lad who was the youngest casualty of WW2, he was in the fishing fleet, he was only 14. My Dad was in the Royal Navy, he joined at 16 in 1944, he had to have his parents’ permission. His Dad had been a regular in the Royal Artillery, joining as a boy of 12, his father had also been a regular in the RFA. Grandad was desperate for my Dad to join the army too but Dad had other ideas as he wanted to go to sea and failed the entrance exam. He never admitted whether he did it on purpose.
Cal's dad joined the merchant navy when he was 16. He knew his parents wouldn't consent so he got his auntie to sign the consent form. Apparently it just had to be an adult. I believe his mum never spoke to her sister for a long long time afterwards.

Anyway the ship he was "on" got sunk in the North Sea when he was still 16. They heard about this in the local newspaper (presumably the Echo) as it was a Liverpool based ship. But unbeknown to them he had been transferred to a different ship. Didn't think to tell his mum and dad though. When he was 17 he joined the Royal Navy which his parents consented too. They figured he would be safer on a naval ship than he would be on a Merchant ship. Speaks volumes really.
 
Morning all. Remembrance Day today which set me thinking of Methuselah as seem to remember his wedding anniversary was around this date, also the date of Nik’s church service @roydo, you will both be in my thoughts. I used to be big on wearing the poppy etc and had crosses placed in the Garden of Remembrance at Westminster. My grandparents between them lost four brothers and one taken prisoner, who by all accounts suffered quite badly and wished he hadn’t survived. I was quite happy to donate for the crosses and poppies but was subsequently bombarded (no pun intended) with requests to sponsor flags, bunting, for DDay, VE day, VJ Day, the list was endless. The last straw was receiving a phone call asking if I would remember them in my will, I said No thank you, please don’t ask again only to receive another phone call when my Mum was near the end again asking if I would remember them in my will, I know they were only doing their job but I’m afraid I lost it and told them that was it, no more. Still feel slightly guilty walking past the poppy sellers though. I‘ll do my own remembrance in my own way. Sorry for the rant so early in the day. Have a good one, all. ?
No experience of the British Legion as I don’t contribute but I can vouch for other charities being too full on. UNICEF must send me a letter every week with my name spelt wrong ?. I tend to donate online and thought I had ticked for no mail but obviously not.
 

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