A Generation Thing

There was a time my uncle Angus was alive I would go and cut peat, enough to take him through the winter. It is hard to understand today the simplicity of a life where winter fuel and food stores were the prime requisite for life. To him television was the devils tool, a computer something on a spacecraft that was buggering up the weather (all that metal in the sky), and women were a species placed here by god to make our lives a misery. He never married.

On a cold day wet day (one of a continual 20+) looking across to the paps of Jura he placed his hand on my shoulder and told me his innermost thought on life... "I'm a miserable old fucker laddie, this world should not mourn the passing of my generation....we've given you wars, bombs, and sanitized killing".....

I never understood quite what he meant.

He had served and fought all over the world but never really spoken of it...not even when pissed, which was much of the time. He was not prone to anything emotional, certainly not aggressive, and only ever aloud or obnoxious when in the vicinity of a priest or other 'holy' person. He hated men of the cloth with such venom and such ferocity that it was best to get him away or get out oneself. He got into serious trouble for trying to kill a priest in Fort William, it was only his exemplary military record (and the priests forgiveness) that kept him from jail....his reaction was to hate them all the more.

When he died it transpired he had kept in contact with the family of a German soldier who had been killed in the war, sent money, letters of encouragement, and kept hidden photos of the soldier, his wife and small child. The family decided not to pursue this matter and never contacted the woman except through the solicitors, as it was obvious he had never physically met her, and the correspondence was very business like. His assets were divided between her and a military charity, with the option to take on his croft going to myself. I did not, but I have often wondered about his comment and what happened that made him like this.

In many ways he is right, but every generation pass on stuff....good and bad so I would not agree with him. We never spoke of it again and I do know why a quarter of a century after his passing I think of it, except life seems to be getting so cheap these days I am starting to think about my own generation in the same terms....

....Perhaps such reflection is part of getting older....or growing up in my case!