My grandfather was intensely patriotic, and felt an abiding sense of civic duty… something not so unusual in the early half of last century. Consequently, when war broke out he was keen to enlist, but as he worked in one of the essential industries (rail), wasn’t given leave to do so — much to his disgust. He was a big man (I recall hearing that when he had a stroke in his 60s, it took 3 paramedics to lift the stretcher, to get him into the ambulance), and the reaction to him walking around Napier (a very small town) was, on the whole, pretty negative (& completely undeserved). The husbands, fathers, and sons of other women, were away fighting; so a fit & healthy, young 6+ foot tall man, was given short thrift. I’m not sure if there was spitting in the street in front of him, but it was certainly pretty close to it.

In any case, my understanding was that he spent the next few years making an absolute nuisance of himself, constantly nagging until the powers-that-be gave in, and he got his release from the Railways. So it was rather ironic that he was on a troop ship, most of the way to Africa, when the WW2 suddenly ended.

He spent the next 2 years, stationed in Egypt, as part of the peacekeeping forces. I believe, mopping up pockets of German resistance which hadn’t heard that the war was over — but again, that comes from a rather hazy recollection of stories told when I was small.

The most vivid story I remember him telling me (why is it grandads always tell the best stories?), was about firing parachute flares into the night sky above sand dunes in the desert. I don’t recall whether there was any fighting involved after firing those flares, but the image of the flickering light illuminating the desert sands has stuck in my memory, even 25 or more years after the telling.