Like many people born in the years after the war I was brought up on the personal stories of those around me who had experienced the conflict either in the forces or keeping the home fires burning.
But rarely did you hear stories of action. The memories of the soldiers, sailors and airmen seemed to be anecdotal. Yet what they had seen first hand must have been horrendous. Today's servicemen have counsellors, they suffer from phsychological disorders such as 'Gulf War Syndrome', 'Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome'. In the two world wars even 'shell shock' was seldom accepted as a genuine illness. In the first world war it was sometimes seen as evidence of cowardice, for which men were executed.
Yet those generations of servicemen had no satellitel television, mobile phones, internet access or emails to maintain instant access with those left at home. For many, they would be posted overseas for years with no communication, apart from the rare, and censored, letter.
My father was no exception. My elder sister was nearly five years old when they first met, having served in the middle east continuously, after having survived Dunkirk. But like so many before him, the stories he tells, are of the good times, the fun, the drunken revelry, the pranks of soldiers trying to hide the stress of battle.
One of these stories, is corroborated in print. Aboard his troop ship was Lieutenant Hugh Cudlipp, who was destined to become Chairman of the Daily Mirror Group.My father has every edition of the ship's newspaper he was to produce during their voyage to war.(See separate article: Ocean News.)
It is such stories that continue to inspire me as a writer and film maker. My book, 'Wartime Wanderers', co-written with Mike Gething, tells an altogether different story, about a football team at war. Bolton Wanderers signed en masse, and were to remain together for the duration.
More than 60 years after the cessation of hostilities new stories continue to emerge. That is the drug for a writer.
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