My Father’s Stories, My Father’s Silence

I have heard Chris O’Reilly speak of her father during Remembrance Day Services over the past few years.  Small moments spoken in remembrance of a young determined man.  Please see below for the memories as shared by Chris. 

My Father’s Stories, My Father’s Silence

I am too young to remember the sacrifices of Vimy Ridge or Ortona.

But memories I have;

Memories from my Irish parents of wartime;

Stories from my Mum of rations and air raid sirens that pierced the night,

Of doing without many things- even further education – because of the war.

Stories told of my Uncle Cliff who fought in Italy;

But it’s the stories that weren’t told,

at least not completely, that stay with me.

My father’s silences stay with me.

Dad was from a family of ten.  Growing up first in Belfast, Northern Ireland, then to Wolverhampton, a rough industrial town in England.

Tough times. Times to make do or do without.

Dad was always a bit of a loner.

When he was 14, and the war was on,

and the call to young men to serve King and country was everywhere,

Dad went to join up.

But he was just fourteen, so someone called for his dad and he was brought home.

But he didn’t give up. He tried again.

Lied about his age, and being tall and wiry, this time he was accepted.

After that, the stories fall silent.

There were a few sepia-toned photographs of Dad – in uniform, with his brothers-in-arms, holding a puppy (being a dog lover, that was one of my favourites.)

But he never told us much about the stories behind the photographs.

My dad fought in places that aren’t remembered much – at least not on this side of the ocean.

He fought through the mud and blood and sweat and loss in North Africa, Palestine and Burma.

But his body told the story in some ways.

He’d contracted malaria in Burma; and was very, very sick.

He recovered well enough to fight on,

but every time he got a bad cold or the flu, the malaria symptoms roared back to life.

After the war, he served for a few years with the Horse Guards – the Household Cavalry, the “Blues” – those men you see in the royal processions, riding on black horses, with white pants, tall black boots, blue jackets with gold armoured vest, a brass helmet and red plumes, reins in one hand, sword in the other. I have a photograph of him in his dress uniform – so young, so much ahead of him…a message on the back to the woman who would be my mother, that someday, this photo would belong to their children.

He was right.

Life wasn’t easy for my Dad. The war took an inner toll on him…with the silences, the stories never told.

There is a chore that speaks to me of my father and his army years.

A task that keeps him alive.

You see, he taught us, my brother and I, to polish our shoes.

It was something he took pride in – polished shoes. Clean, shining shoes.

He taught us how to hold your shoes,

how to apply the polish, how to brush it in and then off,

how to use sheepskin to buff the leather until it gleamed.

I still polish my shoes.

The feel of the brushes,

the smell of the polish,

the sound of the bristles against the leather,

the shine of the shoe in my hand…

it all speaks to me of my father.

Tells the story in many ways he couldn’t.

Or perhaps wouldn’t, to spare his children the horrors of what it was really like to be a soldier.

Every Remembrance Day there’s so much I think of.

Especially in those silent moments

when I remember the silences, my father’s silences, which told their own story.

And still do.