I have always wondered just why my Grandfather choose to join the Army. In 1940 my Grandfather was working as a milk labourer at what became Unigate Milk Company in Guildford, while his three brothers worked at Manor Farm, on the land that now houses the University at Guildford. Many a man (and I guess, woman) would have found work at the farm, and taken what could have been described as the easy life, or at least easy in comparison to war.

My Grandfather returned to Guildford after the war, and didn’t discuss his war time efforts, certainly not with me, his only Grand daughter, nor with his wife and grown up child. After his death in the 1970’s, all that was left behind of his war time life was a few photos, a square coin in a small leather purse that I had been given as a very small child, a box housing his four medals and a piece of material, with embroidered detail in the corners.

About ten years ago I arranged for a company to professionally frame the medals and the embroidered cloth. Both now hang proudly on the landing, where I see them everyday and feel, like so many of us, very proud of our ancestors.