Granda's Wartime Tales

When I was a little girl
My grandfather had a tin
With a sailor smoking a cigarette on the lid
It was what he kept his medals in
 
He called them Pip, Squeak and Wilfred
And I asked him what they were
He said the nineteen fourteen star, the British war medal and the Victory medal
From World War One, but they're not rare
 
He told me his war memories
Could fill many a page
Then said he’d been recruited  
Even though he was underage
 
He told me he’d had a shock
When on the internet he'd seen
That a quarter of a million young men had signed up
All under the age of eighteen
 
He said recruits had a medical
To make sure they were fit to fight
They must have a minimum chest size of thirty-four inches
And five feet three was the minimum height
 
He told me he’d heard something  
That had really filled him with rage
That recruitment officers got two shillings and sixpence
If they turned a blind eye to someone under-age
 
He added that he and some old army friends
Used to spend hours chatting on a bench
Recalling a soldier they’d known
Too short to see over the edge of the trench
 
My granda had asked his friend, a fourteen year old recruit
What on earth he’d signed up for
He reluctantly replied he had clamoured  
For the excitement of fighting in a war
 
He told them of my father’s brother
Who had been the first born son
Blown to pieces at fifteen
Recruited by passing for twenty-one
 
He didn't survive to get medals
His parents thought of him as brave
Many times since then  
I have visited his grave
 
No remains are buried
Just a plaque that bears his name
A list of lives that were lost
No bodies left to claim
 
He also told them about the time
That my late Grandma spent
Visiting her beloved Alexander  
As he lay in a fever tent
 
He had typhoid fever
And he managed to survive
The doctors and nurses told her
He was very lucky to be alive
 
My grandfather would tell war stories
That would chill you to the core
Tales of the atrocities  
And casualties of war