You saw the sun rise, hopefully you would see it set. If you saw it set, you hoped you would see it rise.

Oops....I thought the thread title was "hairy patch". My mistake.

Having just finished "Somme Mud" by E.P.F.Lynch last week, I found this news especially saddening.

I still have my old Granddads medals from his "Fight with Fritz" and treasure them for the pain and suffering that he, his mates and all concerned went through.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

I've got copies of some of my Grandad's diaries about his experiences in WW1.

I've got to get back to retyping them, fascinating account of his life as a soldier and prisoner of war in Germany and Eastern Europe.

I vote this thread "most misleading topic name" in all of TV.

Harry Patch: so much potential in this - yet wasted. what a shame.

I am at a loss at your post James, it is just a simple title without any preconceptions, to allow people to post their thoughts and remembrances.

My particular thought was his comment regarding the sun rising and setting, few words but incredibly poignant.

Sorry if it passed you by.

I am at a loss at your post James, it is just a simple title without any preconceptions, to allow people to post their thoughts and remembrances.

My particular thought was his comment regarding the sun rising and setting, few words but incredibly poignant.

Sorry if it passed you by.

no offense mossy, more to do with where my mind is at late on a friday afternoon...

He was the last of the crew who lived through He11. Let's never forget.

The Five Acts of Harry Patch

by Andrew Motion

I.

A curve is a straight line caught bending

and this one runs under the kitchen window

where the bright eyes of your mum and dad

might flash any minute and find you down

on all fours, stomach hard to the ground,

slinking along a furrow between the potatoes

and dead set on a prospect of rich pickings,

the good apple trees and plum trees and pears,

anything sweet and juicy you might now be

able to nibble around the back and leave

hanging as though nothing were amiss,

if only it were possible to stand upright

in so much clear light and with those eyes

beady in the window and not catch a packet.

II.

Patch, Harry Patch, that's a good name,

Shakespearean, it might be one of Hal's men

at Agincourt or not far off, although in fact

it starts life and belongs in Combe Down

with your dad's trade in the canary limestone

which turns to grey and hardens when it meets

the light, perfect for Regency Bath and you too

since no one these days thinks about the danger

of playing in quarries when the workmen go,

not even of prodding and pelting with stones

the wasps' nests perched on rough ledges

or dropped from the ceiling on curious stalks

although god knows it means having to shift

tout suite and still get stung on arms and faces.

III.

First the hard facts of not wanting to fight,

and the kindness of deciding to shoot men

in the legs but no higher unless needs must,

and the liking among comrades which is truly

deep and wide as love without that particular name,

then Pilckem Ridge and Langemarck and across

the Steenbeek since none of the above can change

what comes next, which is a lad from A Company

shrapnel has ripped open from shoulder to waist

who tells you "Shoot me", but is good as dead

already, and whose final word is "Mother",

which you hear because you kneel to hold

one finger of his hand, and then remember orders

to keep pressing on, support the infantry ahead.

IV.

After the big crowd to unveil the memorial

and no puff left in the lungs to sing O valiant hearts

or say aloud the names of friends and one cousin,

the butcher and chimney sweep, a farmer, a carpenter,

work comes up the Wills Tower in Bristol and there

thunderstorms are a danger, so bad that lightning

one day hammers Great George and knocks down

the foreman who can't use his hand three weeks

later as you recall, along with the way that strike

burned all trace of oxygen from the air, it must have,

given the definite stink of sulphur and a second

or two later the gusty flap of a breeze returning

along with rooftops below, and moss, and rain

fading over the green Mendip Hills and blue Severn.

V.

You grow a moustache, check the mirror, notice

you're forty years old, then next day shave it off,

check the mirror again - and see you're seventy,

but life is like that now, suddenly and gradually

everyone you know dies and still comes to visit

or you head back to them, it's not clear which

only where it happens: a safe bedroom upstairs

by the look of things, although when you sit late

whispering with the other boys in the Lewis team,

smoking your pipe upside-down to hide the fire,

and the nurses on night duty bring folded sheets

to store in the linen cupboard opposite, all it takes

is someone switching on the light - there is that flash,

or was until you said, and the staff blacked the window.

His passing has brought the reality of " age" to me and perhaps will change my life for the better.

When I was a kid, my Grandad would sneak my in the bar of his local for a packet of crisps and a shandy. I would be snug in the corner listening to him and all his mates talk about " The War ".

They rarely if ever talked about battles, but I knew about things that could be passed on by French ladies from a very early age.

All those lads in the bar are now ghosts, and what with the other tragic things that have happened around here lately has made me re-think a great deal about my current life.

I was once told funerals are not for the dead, they are there for the living. Harry's has certainly been that for me.

Horrific figures....

"Lest We Forget"

The total number of casualties in World War 1, both military and civilian, were about 37 million:

16 million deaths and 21 million wounded,

The total number of deaths includes 9.7 million military deaths and about 21 million civilians.

The Entente Powers (also known as the Allies) lost 5.7 million soldiers and the Central Powers about 4 million.

Source Wikipedia.