Why we should pay attention to wartime memories – Yorkshire Post letters

MY dad enlisted in the Royal Navy. He was in a protected industry, that being Newton Chambers at Thorncliffe. His name was Ronald Foster and he was Chief Petty Officer Articifer on HMS Rodney.

Veterans in unity call as D-Day honours the ‘greatest generation’ – The Yorkshire Poat says

As a child, he used to tell us about his Navy days and it is only now I realised that he only told us the funny stories and never any of the atrocities that he witnessed.

For my generation, i.e. children born late 1940s, 50s and early 60s, we probably knew less of the war than kids nowadays, my theory being we were born too soon after the war and the older generation didn’t want to talk about it.

I believe in the innocence of childhood, that’s how it should be, but as I have got older, I just wish I knew more about things that happened in the olden days.

It pays us all to listen to what these veterans are saying because their numbers are dwindling and soon there will be no one left to listen to and the memories will be gone.

I hope that our politicians –
and the people of the wider 
world – are taking stock of the stories that are being told about D-Day, and the two world wars, to make sure that this never happens again. Remember, 
there is more that unites us 
than divides us.