Big brother, little brother

[ChrisM]

(Sorry to any member who remembers seeing this image once in the past - but I like it!)

February 1943, Streetly, big brother and little brother, embarkation leave. The unknown future eventually turns out to be Avonmouth, troopship to Tunisia, then Sicily, Italy and Austria. Little brother looks very proud of big brother.

78 years later, he still is.

 

[ChrisM]

Let's put the clock back by seven months. A lovely summer's day in July 1942. It's a Sunday. The moment captured on a precious roll of prewar colour film. The mother, big brother, big sister - and little brother mucking about behind big sister.



Church Stretton. Big brother, part way through his basic training. He's been in three or four weeks. On another picture in this sequence he's displaying a broad grin which suggests reasonable contentment with his lot. He's probably not finding it too tough. After all, he already has two years of military training under his belt as a member of the Home Guard platoon guarding Little Aston and part of Streetly. Hundreds of hours of training, evenings and weekends: on parade ground drill, musketry, bayonet practice, camouflage, field craft, patrolling, sentry go and much else. Evenings and weekends.

And he is well accustomed to the feel of a scratchy uniform on a hot day. That's a good thing – he'll be wearing it for more than four years. Until he's 24.

Chris