Small world isn't it

I've been researching as much as I can about George Hayes my uncle who's picture you can see on the left here..... this was dated 1943 so a year or so before D-Day..... he was killed on the 7th June 1944 the day after D-Day....

After interrogating Google and various other search engines to the very limits of their capabilities..... I stumbled across a post made in 2004 by a woman called Jo in New Zealand who was passing comment on one of the books I had been after one called "Forrard" and the other "Europe Revisited" both books were written by soldiers who served in 1st East Riding Yeomanry and both obviously gave background about what went on .... unfortunately both books are out of print and the ones that are on sale are going for ridiculous prices.... So I cheekily asked if she could scan the books for anything that mentioned George on or around the 7th June 1944.

Anyway I sent off a mail to this 2004 email address in New Zealand fully expecting it to bounce considering it was 6 years old.... but Jo answered me !!! much to my delight... it turned out that her father also served in 1st ERY and not only that but that he had kept a diary of what happened from D-Day onwards.....

Now this is where it gets very interesting.....

Although she couldn't remember where his diary had been posted she did give me the title which with my bloodhound DNA + Google I am pretty certain I've found it...

I knew that George was the very first soldier of 1st ERY to lose his life but I didn't really have any concrete evidence exactly how.....until I found the very diary Jo had been talking about here

The give away line is "our first casualty" thereby confirming it was George Hayes... He was killed because he wouldn't sleep under his battle tank, and on that night a shell landed close to where he was sleeping.... there seemed to be some argument at the time about the safety of sleeping under tanks......mainly because the ground was so soft and battle tanks do tend to sink in soft ground when stationary and if you're sleeping underneath it ... well you can guess the rest..... Of course he may still have been killed had he slept under his tank, we don't know exactly what happened that night, the only consolation I suppose was the fact that he was asleep when it happened, so he probably got killed instantly unlike some of his fellow soldiers.....

I am amazed and utterly gobsmacked at how a simple enquiry which could have been missed can reveal so much... and like the title says ......

"Small world isn't it"

Normandy is booked :)

My first ever passport has arrived and the ferry and hotel have been booked in the city of Caen, France .... My mother has tried on a few occasions to get out to Brettville sur Laize to visit her brothers grave George who was killed on the 7th June 1944 the day after D-Day, she last saw him when she was 14..... and he was 21 ....it's a long time to wait to pay your respects...

I knew my mother had booked a coach trip out to France and had presumed it was all going well until she told me that they had rung her up and cancelled due to lack of interest...AGAIN !! ... needless to say she was quite upset by the cancellation.... So I offered my driving services to get them out there.... I couldn't do much else to help... and thought at least if I can get them out there the visit can go ahead....

I should imagine it will be quite emotional for her, I of course never met or knew him, but I have him to thank for my interest in joining the Army and setting me on the path I chose all those years ago .... and I've always wanted to visit his resting place and pay my respects ever since I saw a dog eared black and white photograph my Nan took when she visited her son's grave.....


So we are booked into a nice hotel in Caen by the marina (to please Dad... he has to at least see boats once a day to be happy or he gets withdrawal symptoms) .....and we are planning on visiting the cemetery where George was buried, and then onto a few other places to fill up the two days we have out there .... probably visit the Bayeux Tapestry and a few museums ... it should be quite a busy time ..... And I'm so glad my mother is finally getting out there come hell or high water........ :)

Nokia vs washing machine.... FIGHTTTTT !!!!

Needless to say the Nokia phone lost spectacularly, it refused to turn on, charge or in fact display anything.... So being a resourceful bugger I grabbed two 20 gram bags of silica desiccant whacked them in the microwave to re-activate them .....then grabbed an old used plastic bread bag and put them to bed with each other... I calculated that 40 grams of silica desiccant was enough concentrated sucking power to remove the water from a glass marble....

3 days later I plugged my phone in and it sprang to life !!! result... so all is not lost who think they have killed their mobile phone.... probably works for phones dropped in toilets/puddles/rivers etc ... the important thing is to resist trying to use the phone ... take the battery straight out and put the phone somewhere to dry or better still put it in a home made accelerated Gobi desert like I did :)

Freya hasn't been well for the past few days, she's been very out of sorts, miserable and whining... she's been running a temperature and complaining that her tongue hurts and she does have two small red marks on it ... I think we are over the worst of it now though.... (fingers crossed) ... but on the flip side she is completely out of nappies now, it didn't take her very long and we didn't rush her... she did it when she was good and ready to do it... I've never been a fan of forcing a child to get out of nappies and so far we've only had about two or three accidents with her.... obviously she was ready .... we've even had our first dry night with her.... she is growing up so quickly now, very chatty, quite long and involved conversations with only the occasional "dubba dubba" thrown in to fill in the gaps in her vocabulary .... she doesn't miss a thing, not much gets by her and has started giving as good as she gets with the other kids......

last night I shot a rat clean off the decking.... the joys of living in the country I guess, we don't leave any food out in our rubbish but I guess with leaving our rubbish out for two weeks (bloody council) it does entice ratty rattus... it squeaked and died pretty much immediately... I shall be out on dusk patrol again tonight to "off" it's cousins sisters and brothers in quick succession....Mouse wars was the beginning ... it's serious now ... and personal ..... ;¬)

At least in the country you can hear them rustling through the undergrowth.... you don't see them in the cities they prefer to use sewers .... so I guess we have a cleaner class of rat out here in the country....