Had he lived, today my father would have been 99.   As it turned out for him, he died of a massive heart attack whilst having a shave in the bathroom at the age of just 62.  It`s all of 37 years ago now but something else that makes today one to remember is that my mother always used to say that, when my father`s birthday comes around, we can begin to see the evenings reappearing.   And it`s true - the daylight hangs around for a while longer and each day we can see a difference.

But I also reflect on the life my father had and it wasn`t easy.   He was the second son of parents who ran a small local bakery and village shop in a hamlet on the Berkshire/Hampshire border.   He had done well at school but the family business was so small that it couldn`t sustain another son being brought into it.

So my father either volunteered or it was volunteered for him that he should go off to become a boy soldier and join up at the Chepstow army training school.   The army became his life - he served for almost 20 years, five of which were spent in the notorious German Prisoner of War Camp Stalag V111B at Lamsdorf in the Silesia area Poland.   He didn`t talk about it much, as old soldiers seldom do, but I know it was pretty brutal. 

In January 1945, as the Soviet armies resumed their offensive and advanced into Germany, many of the prisoners were marched westward in groups of 200 to 300 in what became known as the death march.  Many of them died from the bitter cold and exhaustion. The lucky ones got far enough to the west to be liberated by the American army.   My father was one of the `lucky ones.`

He was discharged from the army in October 1945 "ceasing to fulfill army physical requirements," as his Certificate of Discharge records.   Hardly surprising and he was forever after left with constant nervousness, unable to relax, living on his nerves and the proverbial knife edge and it was this wartime legacy, I`m sure, that led to his early and untimely passing.

It seems to me that, for all the grumbles I may have, my life has been pretty much plain sailing compared to the trials, tribulations and life changing experiences my father suffered, mostly in silence.  And so I look back on this day and remember my old Dad and wish more than anything that his life could have been half as blessed as my own has been and that the light might have shone on him for a little longer.