Memories of an Old Soldier

"I remember"

By Albion


As one gets older they say ones memory goes first, or is it second? Doesn’t matter.

I was born in Cardiff. The only thing that opened on a Sunday in Cardiff, as I remember, was an umbrella. In school we learned Welsh as a second language, if I told you what year this was you wouldn’t believe me. You would say no such year exists. On Wednesdays people would come down from the valley’s to do their trading. They all spoke Welsh.

I saw my first mixed race in Sophia Town, a dreadful, depressing part of Cardiff’s Dockland. The area was so bad that any single female living there and marrying out of her race would be social climbing. The swarthy people in Sophia Town appeared to be mainly Tamils or Lascars who had jumped ship.

A change of pace, it was a Mr. W. Wordsworth that wrote.

Thou shouldest be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;

Ah sheer poetry………….. So to speak

Hell, what’s this?

Ya Allah Your The Greatest
Ya Allah Your The Most Gracious
From You We Were Created
To You We Shall Return
From Our Mothers We Were Raised
To You We Praise Shatain Keeps Whispering
Telling us To Go Astray
All We Have To Do Is Pray
Five Times A Day

My God where am I? ….Bradford, mate!

I must be getting old. My Optometrist informed me that I was getting the first signs of cataracts. That didn’t surprise me. I thought my neighbour was burning leaves all day.

I replied “that explains everything, I am not seeing blacks as well as I should, it’s all greys”

He asked inquiringly “Have you been to 'Lester' or Newham recently? Anyway once we remove your cataracts you should see true blacks again".

I asked if he was indulging in ‘dark humour’

“You see greys?” my wife asked “what little alien people?”
I replied, yes I ‘spose you could say that.

Growing up as a child we didn’t have TV, in fact no-one had TV. They were still experimenting with the hand cranked model, Mr. Baird’s silly offering

We moved to Kent. My early memories of England were idyllic. Green fields, the sounds of the countryside and pretty English girls. There was no such crimes as race hate, as far as I was concerned as a young boy in England there was only one race that lived in England.

Of course we had our earlier differences with the Scots, like that fracas at Bannockburn or was it Culloden? Same with the Irish and the battle of the Boyne, I am sure somewhere the Welsh were also upset.

In essence though we were all one tribe, our differences have now been put aside, so much so that a couple of people were who trying to slaughter us have now been invited to sit in our parliament and rule over us as are many of the leather bound seats in our parliament now taken up by Scottish people. So you see it’s forgive and forget, that’s what racial bonding is all about.

We are of one tribe, one race, one culture, we experience kinship, we are a kindred folk, with one ethnicity. We are Britons. One clan of European descent. God I almost mentioned the W word but thought better of it. I don’t want to spend the next 7 years in an Austrian jail.

So I suppose it follows that I should expect to see coloured people on my ‘Coloured’ TV set? This wasn’t so when I had a black and white TV. What is a continuing source of worry is that most, if not all of these swarthy people on Crime watch, are as black as Croydon during an eclipse of the sun. They do not belong to my clan even though they appear to speak my language.

I am proud of my Welsh roots. I have a decal of a Welsh Dragon stuck on the peghead of my guitar.

I am an old soldier. I was defending my King and what was once ‘GREAT’ Britain whose empire was still more or less intact. I was issued with Lee Enfield Rifle with a 5 shot magazine. The Russians all had machine guns. From what I read the army is still not properly equipped so nothing much has changed.

I should also mention in passing my father knew Lloyd George,


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