{"id":9723,"date":"2013-09-30T12:43:07","date_gmt":"2013-09-30T16:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/?p=9723"},"modified":"2013-09-30T13:08:20","modified_gmt":"2013-09-30T17:08:20","slug":"heathcote-williams-my-dad-and-my-uncle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2013\/09\/heathcote-williams-my-dad-and-my-uncle.html","title":{"rendered":"<center>Heathcote Williams: &#8216;My Dad and My Uncle&#8217;<\/center>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zBPs6REznxg\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><center><FONT SIZE=1>Words by Heathcote Williams. Narration and montage by Alan Cox.<\/FONT><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><FONT SIZE=1><em><strong>Written upon learning that WWI centenary Remembrance plans are to be given \u00a350 million by the UK government.<br \/>&#8212; BBC News, 11 October 2012<\/strong><\/em><\/FONT><\/CENTER><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>My Dad and my Uncle were in World War One.<br \/>\nAt least they were in it, but not in it:<br \/>\nConscripted but never committed.<\/p>\n<p>My Dad was called up in 1915,<br \/>\nAnd then run over by a field gun<br \/>\nIn an army camp at Lydd marsh in Kent,<br \/>\nSo he never actually made it<br \/>\nAcross the Channel to fight.<br \/>\nHis pelvis and both legs were crushed,<br \/>\nIn his first week, in a training exercise,<br \/>\nBy a Howitzer rolling downhill.<br \/>\nIt weighed over thirty hundredweight.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_9725\" style=\"width: 471px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/My-Dad-and-My-Uncle-howitzer-1-.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9725\" data-attachment-id=\"9725\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2013\/09\/heathcote-williams-my-dad-and-my-uncle.html\/my-dad-and-my-uncle-howitzer-1\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/My-Dad-and-My-Uncle-howitzer-1-.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"461,262\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"&amp;#8216;My Dad and My Uncle&amp;#8217; (Royal Artillery gun crews and Howitzers WWI)\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Royal Artillery gun crews and Howitzers WWI at Lydd [Bill Hyde collection].&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/My-Dad-and-My-Uncle-howitzer-1-.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/My-Dad-and-My-Uncle-howitzer-1-.jpg\" alt title=\"Royal Artillery gun crews with Howitzers at Lydd, World War I [Bill Hyde collection].\" width=\"461\" height=\"262\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9725\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/My-Dad-and-My-Uncle-howitzer-1-.jpg 461w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/My-Dad-and-My-Uncle-howitzer-1--300x170.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 461px) 100vw, 461px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-9725\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><br \/>Royal Artillery gun crews with Howitzers at Lydd, World War I [Bill Hyde collection].<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>While pushing and dragging the gun up a slope<br \/>\nMy Dad and the other eighteen-year-olds carried shells,<br \/>\nShells to be fed into the Howitzer\u2019s six-foot-long barrel.<br \/>\nOne of the group lost his footing<br \/>\nAnd they lost control of the gun carriage,<br \/>\nThen two were crushed by its cast-iron wheels;<br \/>\nEach wheel being the height of a man\u2019s shoulder.<br \/>\nOne of them died, but my Dad survived.<\/p>\n<p>As a child I was ashamed of the story,<br \/>\nNaively wanting him to be a hero<br \/>\nBut, of course, if he\u2019d never been invalided out,<br \/>\nI might never have come into existence.<\/p>\n<p>There were a thousand Howitzers on the Western Front,<br \/>\nHeavy, Swedish-made guns towed along<br \/>\nBy boys, men and horses from battle to battle<br \/>\nWhich, by the war\u2019s end, had fired 25 million shells,<br \/>\nStealing thousands of lives, and generations unborn,<br \/>\nMaking the gun crews primary targets.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/My-Dad-and-My-Uncle-howitzer-2-.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"9726\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2013\/09\/heathcote-williams-my-dad-and-my-uncle.html\/my-dad-and-my-uncle-howitzer-2\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/My-Dad-and-My-Uncle-howitzer-2-.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"461,320\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"&amp;#8216;My Dad and My Uncle&amp;#8217; (Howitzer with Early British Crew WWI)\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/My-Dad-and-My-Uncle-howitzer-2-.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/My-Dad-and-My-Uncle-howitzer-2-.jpg\" alt title=\"Howitzer with Early British Crew, World War I\" width=\"461\" height=\"320\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-9726\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/My-Dad-and-My-Uncle-howitzer-2-.jpg 461w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/My-Dad-and-My-Uncle-howitzer-2--300x208.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 461px) 100vw, 461px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>My Uncle Jack\u2019s connection to the war<br \/>\nWas stronger than my Dad\u2019s, as Jack \u201csaw action\u201d.<br \/>\nHe made it across the Channel<br \/>\nIn a Royal Artillery troopship,<br \/>\nAnd lost the use of a limb in 1916.<br \/>\nHis arm was half severed by shrapnel:<br \/>\nHe held it in place until it was patched up<br \/>\nAnd then he was returned to his unit,<br \/>\nWith a flask of iodine to dab on it.<\/p>\n<p>Jack was in one of that war\u2019s most famous battles,<br \/>\nOne of those whose very name makes you well up \u2013<br \/>\nBut Jack ran counter to the received wisdom<br \/>\nAbout the soldiers serving in the Great War<br \/>\nWith its sentimental patina and its mythologized tales<br \/>\nOf Nurse Edith Cavell, and the Angel of Mons,<br \/>\nAnd lions led by donkeys and plucky Brits,<br \/>\nBecause my Dad\u2019s elder brother<br \/>\nNever really participated either,<br \/>\nAnd he certainly never gave it his all.<br \/>\nJack had \u201creservations\u201d was how my Dad put it.<\/p>\n<p>More often than not Jack didn\u2019t have \u201cone up the spout\u201d<br \/>\nMeaning he\u2019d avoid putting a bullet in his gun,<br \/>\nBecause, with a dodgy arm, it was a nuisance to load it<br \/>\nAnd when his hands were freezing he just thought \u2018sod it\u2019.<br \/>\nIt was easy to escape their corporal\u2019s attention,<br \/>\nAnd Jack said there were many others who did the same.<br \/>\n\u201cHundreds, if not thousands,\u201d Jack always claimed,<br \/>\nMen whose instincts told them to do the minimum.<\/p>\n<p>Jack won the Military Cross, but not for that.<br \/>\nHe won it for dragging their Sergeant Major<br \/>\nBack into the trenches from No Man\u2019s Land,<br \/>\nWhere the Sergeant Major was lying wounded.<\/p>\n<p>Jack\u2019s commanding officer came to know of it<br \/>\nAnd Jack was \u201cmentioned in dispatches\u201d \u2013<br \/>\nThe Army\u2019s understated way<br \/>\nOf saying that he\u2019d shown courage<br \/>\nIn undertaking his one-armed rescue,<br \/>\nThough, as far as his fellow soldiers were concerned,<br \/>\nJack\u2019s exploit had been a waste of time<br \/>\nFor their Sergeant Major was unpopular,<br \/>\nAnd in any case he was dead on arrival.<\/p>\n<p>Jack lived with the taunts and the ribbing<br \/>\nAbout his gesture having been pointless,<br \/>\nAnd was even accused of doing it to \u201cshow off\u201d.<br \/>\nCripplingly shy, this was a knife to the heart,<br \/>\nAnd it lasted long, long afterwards.<br \/>\nJack never picked up his Military Cross<br \/>\nAnd whenever a family member mentioned it,<br \/>\nHe dismissed it as \u201ca putty medal with a wooden string.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As a child I never quite knew what that meant,<br \/>\nBut apparently it was a common expression,<br \/>\nApplied to the top brass when they visited the front,<br \/>\nWhen they strutted up and down \u2013<br \/>\nMartinets with black gloves and swagger sticks<br \/>\nFact-finding desk-jockeys from the War Office<br \/>\nClanking away with their rows of flash medals<br \/>\nAnd drawing attention to themselves \u2013<br \/>\nThose below in the dugouts would mutter,<br \/>\n\u201cPutty medals with a wooden string.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYour Uncle Jack lost all his friends in the trenches,\u201d<br \/>\nMy Dad would say, \u201cAnd he\u2019s never made any, ever again.\u201d<br \/>\nAnd it was true, I never saw Jack with a friend.<br \/>\nI saw him throughout my life, but he was always alone<br \/>\nExcept for his sister, Mabel, who looked after him.<br \/>\nHe never made another friend in over fifty years.<\/p>\n<p>Neither he nor my father ever explained the war to me.<br \/>\nIt was just something that had happened to them.<br \/>\nSomething irrational that hung over them;<br \/>\nA grisly cloud of spectral blood;<br \/>\nA tumour that fogged the psyche;<br \/>\nSomething in their history that had spoiled both their lives.<br \/>\nStoically they never admitted to the pain<br \/>\nBut, looking back, my Dad was always in pain<br \/>\nAnd Jack could be painfully silent<br \/>\nTo the point of catatonia. <\/p>\n<p>Even though they were little more than children,<br \/>\nThey\u2019d been forced to endure a random, excruciating pain<br \/>\nThat had confiscated parts of their bodies,<br \/>\nBodies that had been their birthright.<\/p>\n<p>But afterwards each was able to exact<br \/>\nA small but significant revenge<br \/>\nBy their both giving the war some fifty years<br \/>\nOf unremitting negative spin.<br \/>\nThey\u2019d scoff at those who tried to romanticize it;<br \/>\nThey\u2019d never buy poppies for their buttonholes;<br \/>\nAnd on Remembrance Day they\u2019d say<br \/>\nThat there was nothing worth remembering.<br \/>\nTo my father the cenotaph was \u201ca monument to Jack\u2019s hell.\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cA traffic hazard\u201d, he\u2019d say when we drove past it.<br \/>\n And he\u2019d curse it, that dreary Lutyens plinth<br \/>\nWith its floral lifebelts laid beneath it,<br \/>\nLifebelts that save no one\u2019s lives,<br \/>\nPropped up against a memorial<br \/>\nThat\u2019s used to fetishize war after war.<br \/>\n\u201cThey should have a picture on it,\u201d my Dad said<br \/>\n\u201cOf your Uncle Jack living beside rotting corpses \u2013<br \/>\n\u201cPictures of doomed youth with froth-corrupted lungs.\u201d<br \/>\n(He had a first edition of Wilfred Owen.)<\/p>\n<p>As a child I naively wanted to boast about Jack<br \/>\nAnd to tell other boys that he\u2019d won the MC<br \/>\nAs if that would make me seem brave too.<br \/>\nWhen my father overheard me once<br \/>\nI got a dressing-down that I remember to this day:<br \/>\nHe accused me of \u201cthrowing Jack\u2019s weight about.<br \/>\n\u201cYou never ask yourself do you, why Jack never picked it up?<br \/>\nHis medal? Well, he wasn\u2019t proud of it. He was ashamed,<br \/>\nWhen his friends are there, six foot deep in Belgian mud.<br \/>\nIf he doesn\u2019t swank about it, why should you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When my father died, Jack invited me to go out for a meal<br \/>\nOn the first Friday of the month, every year till he died.<br \/>\nThe meals were largely silent. His bad dream was still there,<br \/>\nEven in the nineteen-seventies.<br \/>\nHis mind was still numbed by something whose origins<br \/>\nWere inexplicable and which he\u2019d never decoded.<br \/>\nA war that had caused another war, like a cancer<br \/>\nThat people still seem unable to cauterize.<br \/>\nOver the years, I\u2019d winkle out his memories<br \/>\nAs tactfully as I could.<\/p>\n<p>Jack didn\u2019t mind talking about actual events<br \/>\nAllowing himself only to recount the facts,<br \/>\nBut never touching upon his emotions.<br \/>\nA waiter would bring the cheese trolley and most months<br \/>\nJack would tell the same story about a mule cart<br \/>\nThat had arrived behind the lines ferrying an enormous cheese,<br \/>\nA Dutch cheese which they\u2019d all salivated at the sight of.<br \/>\nJack\u2019s best friend from the same street in Chester<br \/>\nImpulsively ran towards it, his mouth watering<br \/>\nOnly to be picked off by a German sniper.<br \/>\n\u201cFell down against the cheese\u201d, Jack said,<br \/>\n\u201cI won\u2019t eat the stuff now.\u201d<br \/>\nAnd I\u2019d nod and say, \u201cNo,\u201d<br \/>\nAs understandingly as I could manage.<\/p>\n<p>The story was unchanging, several times a year.<br \/>\nA hapless waiter wheeled off the cheese trolley untouched.<br \/>\n\u201cI ever tell you about that?\u201d Jack would ask at the end.<br \/>\nI was sure that he half knew he had, but why not?<br \/>\nIf the fact of it never went away. <\/p>\n<p>As a boy I seem to have been set the uninvited task<br \/>\nOf probing a world that they wished never existed,<br \/>\nAnd which left them wishing it would go away.<\/p>\n<p>My Dad and my Uncle were in the First World War<br \/>\nThough it\u2019s not quite the whole story,<br \/>\nBecause neither of them were exactly in it,<br \/>\nNot in the way that most people might think,<br \/>\nBut from their experiences I was able to learn<br \/>\nWhat callous folly had killed thirty million.<\/p>\n<p>They were forced to serve King and Country for no reason,<br \/>\nThey both had lifelong scars, and got nothing in return \u2013<br \/>\nNothing from the King, and nothing from the Country,<br \/>\nBut both ended up certain there must be another way<br \/>\nAnd for that I\u2019ve been grateful to them, ever since.<\/p>\n<p>They may or may not be in some other world now<br \/>\nBut something is certain, if only to me.<br \/>\nThey won\u2019t be commemorating World War One<br \/>\nAnd may not even think the matter worth raising.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>&#8212; Heathcote Williams<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Words by Heathcote Williams. Narration and montage by Alan Cox. Written upon learning that WWI centenary Remembrance plans are to be given \u00a350 million by the UK government.&#8212; BBC News, 11 October 2012 My Dad and my Uncle were in World War One. At least they were in it, but not in it: Conscripted but [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,20,17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9723","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-literature","7":"category-media","8":"category-political-culture","9":"entry","10":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-2wP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9723\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}