The last Tommy

As a child of the 1980s, with no family history of church attendance, I have always experienced remembrance Sunday through television, and it has always been compelling, the more so as I studied the history of the 20^th century. But the last few years the really interesting thing for me is the accounts of the final veterans still alive. In particular, the fact that Harry Patch, who fought at the Battle of Passchendaele, did not discuss his experience with anyone until he was over 100 years old. He now speaks eloquently, and particularly strikingly about his views and experiences spanning the 20^th Century.

This, along with the campaign from the Royal British Legion campaign to Honour the Covenant between the armed forces and the general public, has led me to think about the other aspects of collective memory that we might be allowing to die out. For instance in Spain, until very recently only a fraction of accounts of the Spanish Civil War have been written by the Spanish themselves, as forgetting was both what people wanted to do and was encouraged by the government. It’s only now as people who were involved are dying out that there is renewed interest in making sure that the war is understood.

It is not just wars where this is the case. It is often only the situation of people in my grandparents generation that is forgotten. Growing up in Sheffield as I child I remember you would often see old and even middle aged men lacking many of their fingers from working in the steelworks, and I remember visiting my great uncle in hospital shortly before he died, and seeing his feet without toes from an accident in the thirties. That generation is dying out, and with them an understanding of the lives that were lived among constant danger, and a reason for representation in the workplace.

So I’m really glad that Harry Patch is becoming, for want of a better word, a celebrity, and that he or whoever is the final serviceman of WW1 to die will be commemorated by the government and the whole country. The government and the press are, I think, doing a great job together here, in keeping that personal history alive. I’d like to hear what anyone thinks about how both could engage more people in promoting understanding of real history before the last witnesses are quite out of reach.