![]() ![]() ![]() I was sent to Merrywood Elementary when I was six and I thought it was a complete waste of time. I always wanted to help my uncle Stan unload whatever ship had docked that morning, but he just laughed, saying, "All in good time, my lad." It couldn't be soon enough for me, but, without any warning, school got in the way. Once the holds had been emptied, the dockers would load them with salt, apples, tin, even coal (my least favorite, because it was an obvious clue to what I'd been doing all day and annoyed my mother), before they set off again to I knew not where. Cargo ships coming from distant lands and unloading their wares: rice, sugar, bananas, jute and many other things I'd never heard of. Every day I spent at the dockyard was an adventure. When he left of a morning I would often follow him to the city docks, where he worked. The only other man I can remember was my uncle Stan, who used to sit at the top of the table at breakfast time. My grandpa rarely offered an opinion on anything, but then he was deaf as a post so he might not have heard the question in the first place. Grandma said my dad had been a brave man, and once when we were alone in the house she showed me his medals. Whenever I questioned my mother about his death, she didn't say any more than that he'd served with the Royal Gloucestershire Regiment and had been killed fighting on the Western Front only days before the Armistice was signed. I was told my father was killed in the war. ![]()
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