Brothers In Arms

Photo from The Long, Long Trail.

http://www.1914-1918.net/index.htm
Two excellent WW1 websites!

Song Good-bye-ee from

http://www.firstworldwar.com/audio/goodbyeee.htm

Following on from Armistice Day (November 11th ) when for a few hours our memories are given over to those who paid the ultimate sacrifice! I thought that as a nation we should keep their sacrifices alive for a longer period than those few hours, usually given on a cold wet autumn day!

I have only just unpinned a scarlet red paper poppy off my coat, it was becoming all crumpled and shrivelled up just like a real flower dieing after the first frost. Anyway, I’d made my little protest that probably went amiss with the New Brits. But when you have had a direct lost, with someone who had died directly or indirectly with services rendered in saving or serving this country in two world wars or campaigns since, it seems more poignant to want to hang on to the commemoration of their deaths for as long as possible!


My father and his four brothers went off to the four corners of the world during WW2 to fight for King and country. Not one of them lived to make old bones! My father died of consequences resulting from fighting an evil Nazi regime, but not until a decade after the war had ended. I was a very young child in one very oversized working class family that still existed then! After his death the land fit for heroes, decided to stop his war injuries pension, (he had also worked and held down a job) that left my widow mother without any financial means at a time when the state still discouraged applying for the little state benefit that was on offer! But that’s another story!

Looking at this site made me think of how over the first half of the twentieth century, our men folk and women took the call to arms to defend this nation without a moment’s hesitation! But now just sixty years later, it is sometimes really hard to accept that our servicemen and women and the civilian armies of a total war effort were not sold down the Swanny!


I have just had another pro-black propaganda leaflet dropped through my letterbox. A Black is beautiful culture and style exhibition, laid on by curtsy of the local council! Try something like that with the word WHITE in it, and see how far you would get in the land of the traitors! I could make my own Black is Rubbish exhibition, highlight their success in drug-pushing and street robberies. Saw another load of government crap about the potential of CCTV, in isolated public places. They shot themselves in the foot by showing, a black man robbing another white victim, a young women, crumpled to the ground with this scum standing over her taking her bag and making his getaway. And the victim another BNP voter I thought! OK, no one in their right mind wants to condone race hate attacks, except there is no parity with the reporting of race attacks! Those white boys who attacked the black Liverpool youth and murdered him in a race attack with an Ice Pick should be hung. But so should Blacks on white racist attacks with same outcome of death.

For Example The MacDonald Boy in Glasgow aged around 14 or 15 years old.

This young Scottish boy who was kidnapped by a gang of Muslim Pakistani men, they tortured him for hours before they set fire to him! But, there was not the same coverage in the Media, Press, TV or Radio that follows when a white on black attack takes place! Anyway I think I am defiantly going to call it a day soon, say within a month, I have gone as far as I can with my protest about the great betrayal of our parents and grandparents!!!

I have just come across this WW1 website that I thought deserves an airing!

The Long, Long Trail: The story of the British army in the First World War.

http://www.1914-1918.net/index.htm

Example

24 May 1915: three brothers killed on same day!

Arthur, 21, Frank, 18, and Frederick Racheil, 24, all serving with 3rd Battalion, the Royal Fusiliers. Sons of John and Ann Racheil, of 23, Holme Road, East Ham, London. None of the brothers has a known grave. All are commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing, Ypres.



'This article was produced following a discussion at the Great War Forum. It lists brothers who are known to have died on the same day, or as a result of the same incident, whilst serving with the British forces in 1914-1918. Thanks are due to all who contributed the following details, of - at present - 143 sets of brothers. This is the first page: more are at' Brothers died 1916-1918


http://www.1914-1918.net/heroes/brothers.htm
http://www.1914-1918.net/heroes/brothers2.htm

The Great War Forum

http://www.1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/

Vintage Audio: Good-bye-ee Updated - Saturday, 6 March, 2004
Reproduced below are the lyrics to the popular wartime song, Good-bye-ee, composed by R. P. Weston and Bert Lee in 1915.
A snatch from the song later formed the title of an edited book of memoirs from a serving cavalryman, Ben Clouting, 'Tickled to Death to Go'.

Click here to listen to a variation of the song Good-bye-ee performed by Courtland and Jeffries in 1918 (MP3 format 406kb)


Good-bye-ee

Brother Bertie went away,To do his bit the other day With a smile on his lipsand his Lieutenant's pipsupon his shoulder bright and gay. As the train moved out he said, 'Remember me to all the birds.' Then he wagged his pawand went away to war Shouting out these pathetic words:

Goodbye-ee, goodbye-ee, Wipe the tear, baby dear, from your eye-ee, Tho' it's hard to part I know, I'll be tickled to death to go. Don't cry-ee, dont sigh-ee, there's a silver lining in the sky-ee, Bonsoir, old thing, cheer-i-o, chin, chin, Nah-poo, toodle-oo, Goodbye-ee.

At the hospital at Kew, The convalescents, dressed in blue, Had to hear Lady Lee, who had turned 83, Sing all the old, old songs she knew. Then she made a speech and said, "I look on you boys with pride, And to thank you all I'm going to kiss each one", Then they all grabbed a stick and cried,

Goodbye-ee, goodbye-ee, Wipe the tear, baby dear, from your eye-ee, Tho' it's hard to part I know, I'll be tickled to death to go. Don't cry-ee, dont sigh-ee, there's a silver lining in the sky-ee, Bonsoir, old thing, cheer-i-o, chin, chin, Nah-poo, toodle-oo, Goodbye-ee.

Imagine a marching battalion of British soldiers singing this with some of their own choice words put in!

"Suicide Ditch" was a term used by British soldiers during WW1 to refer to the front-line trench!

Cultural Suicide is term used by many in Britain, with what we are now witnessing!!!