Lest we forget
My mother was an ambulance driver and my father was a flying instructor during the Second World War. My uncle was a fireman during the intense bombing of London, the Blitz. My grandfather served in the British Army in Northern France during the First World War.
I am against the effort made by the UK government to create division between those who, on Remembrance Sunday, wish to honour the dead, killed in action in armed conflicts and wars and those who support the Palestinians’ resistance to occupation and for justice. The government have tried to confuse people. Remembrance Sunday has never been referred to as Remembrance weekend. 11 am on the 11th month etc. is well before the March for Palestine starts. You can do both if you want.
I am calling out to those who identify as English or British to wake up to what is happening in the Middle East. I believe the events there have deep consequences for us.
My mother and father – and my uncle – were fighting to prevent an occupation by the German armed forces during the 1939-45 war. The Palestinians have had their land occupied for 75 years. I appeal to people who haven’t experienced this in their own lives, to give it some deep thought. What would you do if you were in this situation?
My mother drove ambulances for the ARP (Air Raid Patrol) in Leicester and, for example, when the worst bombing raid by the German Air Force laid waste Coventry on 14 November 1940, my mother immediately volunteered to drive an ambulance across to help people. She told me that she knew Coventry ‘like the back of her hand’. I loved my mother’s hands and I always saw them on a steering wheel or painting – something she took up later in her life. When she arrived in Coventry on the morning of the 15th November, she could see no recognisable landmark building. The City had been flattened. She was responsible for transporting the bodies of the dead who had been drowned in the air raid shelters, due to the destruction of the water mains supply, to the football stadium for identification.
Many of the people who my father trained to fly would have been dead by the end of the month following the commencement of their active service. Some would have joined Fighter Command and therefore they would have fought during the Battle of Britain and other battles. Some would have flown with Bomber Command and would have flown sorties over what was then enemy territory. Some would have taken part in the bombing of German cities like Dresden towards the end of the war.
When my mother, stepped down from the cab of her ambulance, and looked around at the landscape of Coventry and failed to know where she was, she must have seen something similar to the bombed landscape of Gaza. She had left school at 14 to become a trainee hairdresser. She hated this work as she felt that her youth was taken from her and she was nothing more than a slave, so when the war happened she became a driver and she later joined the Motorised Transport Corps. She was posted to an airfield in the Midlands where my father was a Flying Instructor. In 1940 she was 27 years old.
She told me that in the event of an invasion: ‘We would never have surrendered!’
My feeling is, that my mother and father would have been a part of the resistance to the occupation of the island of Britain by the German Armed Forces had it taken place but I can’t be sure. I believe they would have been predisposed to think of resistance as armed resistance.
When I watch the TV footage of the medical and emergency services in Gaza struggling with the consequences of the Israeli bombardment I identify strongly with them. They are my people. I see them as working people like my antecedents.
My parents and my uncle and many other members of my family were resisting occupation. I have never thought of them as terrorists.
Resistance to occupation is a human right. Self Defence cannot be admitted as a plea, in actions taken against an occupied people.
I appeal to your sense of justice and I appeal to you to join the March for Palestine on Saturday at 12 noon in London if you can.