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Remembrance Memories Were My Inspiration
The Royal Albert Hall
Featured Author:
Andy Fowler
Andy was inspired to Join the Army at a young age and was commissioned as an Officer and served the full 22 years travelling and serving with an Infantry Battalion.
He still has a deep interest in Military affairs, as one would after serving that long, but this interest perhaps is not as passionate as his love of classical music and Motorbikes!
In November 1965, when I was seven years old, my mum and dad had occasion to attend a social event one Saturday evening. This was a rare event, and I have no memory of any details, not that it is at all relevant. As a result, I was sent for what would nowadays be called a ‘sleepover’ with my Auntie Janet. I loved Auntie Janet. Technically she was a Great Aunt, being one of my maternal grandma’s two elder sisters. Then in her mid sixties, she was a spinster and a retired primary school teacher. All children loved her, I suspect because however silly or daft you were, she could out-silly anyone, hands down.
Anyway, off I went, and was put to bed at the appropriate hour for one of my age. However I couldn’t get to sleep and, having tossed and turned for a while, I got up and went to find my aunt. She was in her front room, watching on television the Royal British Legion event from the Albert Hall, which I had never seen before. We had the community singing, and then the service with the Bishop of Coventry, auntie telling me that he had been a POW of the Japanese in the Second World War.
Then the poppies fell, dropping onto the heads and shoulders of the young servicemen and women. I was amazed by how many poppies there were and how long it seemed to take, and I was immensely moved. And I believe that something of the soldier entered my boyish soul that evening, one of the reasons why 11 years later I found myself in uniform…
So what do you really need to become a soldier?
