Today was the funeral of my Grandfather, Arthur Taylor, although he was known primarily as Bob. He lived in an extraordinary life, despite in many ways being a very typical person. Across 92 years, he lived through such an interesting period of history, and had some stories to share about what he saw, experienced, and lived.
While watching the funeral online, and hearing my mum’s beautiful eulogy which recounted Bob’s life, it reminded me of a quip from one of my favourite podcasts a few weeks back, about how difficult the world our grandparents grew up in was, and how happy and optimistic they were despite (because?) of it. My grandfather was a positive, frequently smiling chap, but his life story, particularly early on, was something that you could only imagine happening in the poorest nations on earth.
One of nine children, he was born in a tenament block in London during the Depression. His parents were dirt poor; his father was disabled from serving in WW1, where he fought in Gallipoli and the Somme and was poisoned by mustard gas. A miserly war pension was often the only thing that could keep their enormous family fed, and even then, just barely. During a particularly bad stretch of financial misfortune, Bob was sent away to the live with the nuns, simply to reduce the amount of food needed for a few months. A few years later, Bob and his siblings were evacuated to Wales, as the Luftwaffe pounded London night after night. The time he spent in Wales were some of the happiest times of his childhood, as we wore normal clothes for the first time in his life (he only had one pair prior to that) and ate three meals a day.
Once the war ended, things looked up. The new Labour Government, led by Clement Attlee, was all onboard bringing the Beveridge Report into life, and the task of rebuilding the UK meant there was plenty of work to go around. That sounds lal good and well, until Bob, just 19 years old, was called up for National Service and sent to Malaya, modern day Malaysia, to protect the rubber plantations that were being hounded by bandits. The Empire was on its last legs, at this point even India was independent, but even in its death rattle, the lure of fantastic wealth from exporting rubber meant young men were required to be sent from Blighty to the other side of the world to take watch. While not necessarily a full blown conflict, the experience of marching through dense rainforest, knowing enemies were always, always, watching, must have been horrific for someone so young.
At 21 he returned back to the UK, having survived a World War, the Great Depression, the death of a sibling from disease, two years in the jungle, and the death of his mother. He had left school at 13, and had no family business or trade to go into. The country he had returned to had been bombed for six years straight, and rationing would continue until 1954. As mentioned before, when we think of people who experience those kinds of hardships today, we imagine wretched souls born into hellholes such as Yemen, Gaza, the Congo, North Korea, or Liberia. What we consider terrible, a mere 80 years ago, was for much of the world considered “normal”.
It was a beautiful service, and despite being afar, it was moving to be a part of the ceremony and hear more about his life. Today’s post has largely been about the dark times of Bob’s life; tomorrow I will make things a little more upbeat and share the fun, funny, and interesting parts of Bob.
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