(I am posting this again from one of my other blogs as I am clearing it out. This story was originally put up in 2006 or something, but rather than delete it permanently I thought I would put it up here as some of wont have read it, and I like it)
My father the Thief.
I noticed when I was young that my parents were a bit older than those of my classmates at school. I was a late addition to a family of three girls and one boy, a bit of an accident in fact. The next sibling up from me is twelve years older. The last is 16 years my senior.
So I was probably the only kid in my class who had a Dad that was in the Navy during the Second World War. Silly bugger volunteered while a year too young as well – nutter!
Once, years later, my dad was in hospital on some pain medication and was a bit out of it. Some of the things he told me he saw during the D-Day landings – fuck!
So come the end of the war and my dad and his bell-bottomed buddies were surprised to find themselves still on the surface of the water, not below it. The Germans had not sunk them, they had not smashed the sharp end into a harbour wall while pissed, and they had not lost the ship in a high stakes card game in Singapore – Result!
Due to this amazing bout of blind luck the American Government said, “could we have our boat back please?” and my dad and the rest of the crew had to sail the ship to a Naval base in Canada (?)
Now being of good English stock, the lads on board decided that a few souvenirs would be in order, and ran round the ship stripping everything that was not bolted down, and even stuff that was in some cases. By the time they all piled off in Canada that vessel must have been sitting two foot higher in the water, as a couple of tons of it were stashed in the kit bags of the departing Jolly Jack Tars.
As I grew up, I noticed a few strange things about some of the everyday objects around our house. My mums’ bedside lamp looked a bit odd. This was because it was a map table lamp from the bridge officers ready room.
The tablecloths that mum only used for Sunday tea were odd too. Fine white linen, with embroidered ropes running across spaced eight inches apart. In between the ropes and spaced equidistantly ran the initials “USA” with little stars on either side.
Yep, nicked from the Galley.
One day I discovered a bag of single bed sized, heavy canvas battle flags, a white Ensign, a Union Jack and a Stars & Stripes. Nicked from the flag locker. The stars and stripes became my bed cover for a number of years. I apologise to America for all the things I did on that! Ahem.
The best one though, was the hand grenade incident. Oh yes.
One day I popped out into the garden to see what my dad was up to in his shed. I was a tad surprised to see him standing at the bench vice removing the detonator from a grenade that he had in said vice. Being a bit evil, I waited until the detonator was half out and said “What ya doing Dad!”
When he came down from the ceiling, he asked me if I would not mind terribly coming back in a little while, as he was a bit busy.
What gets me is the fact that this was in the early 70’s – these things (he’d nicked two) had been knocking about since the end of the war! LIVE! Imagine what would have happened if I had got hold of them!
Could have had a spectacular firework night.
