In all this stupid name calling and bitching that's going on at the moment after the vote, the anniversary of the battle of the somme almost seems to have been forgotten, I hope I don't need to go into the horrendous casualty count that occurred on the first day and following weeks, as I presume you were all taught at school or have bothered to read about this horiffic time in our country's history.

Obviously no one is still alive from those times, so now we have only a few grainy film clips and the written word, no one can know what these poor guys went through. All I can tell you is my experience of growing up with a grand father who was there, he used to stay with us every now and again ( his wife died quite young), he would go to bed and all was well, then about 1/2 hr in he would start to have night mares, at first he would start by singing the old songs that the soldiers sung, then he would start to shout and scream, calling out for his mates etc, this stayed with him until almost the end.
When standing at his funeral service, I remember thinking to myself, was he one of the lucky ones or not.

Shooter

My grandfather was also there on the first day. The only time he would talk about it was when it was mentioned on the news, and all he said then was, that was the day we lost 40,000 men before dinner.
It wasn't until the day before he died aged 90 that he sat and told me and my father how all his friends died in graphic detail. What a thing to live with for all that time.
Out of the 600 men that went with him only 2 came home.
He used to go to church on a Sunday before he went to war but not after he came back.

RIP one and all :-(