Kern wrote:
Grim... wrote:
My Grandfather was a piper in WWII. He had a pistol, if I remember correctly, but basically all he did was go out onto the battlefield before anyone else (except for other pipers, obv) with a fucking scottish flag tied to a pole on his back, and play the bagpipes to raise moral.
Astoundingly, most of them survived
Wow. It's excellent that you know his stories. Do you know where he piped?
Hmm, no. I'm got a feeling he's told me, but I don't remember. My brother might.
He (my grandfather, not my brother) remained quite good friends with his fellow pipers (they weren't in a squad together, each regiment (maybe, not sure of the details) had a couple, but as you can imagine they got on because they were all insane in the same way), and most of them came home from the war and stayed in touch. I met some of them on the rare occasions they met - many of them came to my grandfathers 60th, although I wasn't very old at the time.
As they got older still, they all attended each others funerals and walked behind the coffin, playing a funeral march called "The Battle Is Over". When my grandfather died there was only one left, and he was in a wheelchair and very, very ill, but he got up and walked behind the coffin, playing his bagpipes as best he could. I remember the pall-bearers went slowly so he could keep up.
My brother and I got talking to his son (or maybe son-in-law) who had driven him, and it turned out that they not only lived quite nearby (about fifteen miles up the road) but the son-in-law knew my uncle really well. We spent some time talking to the piper himself (who's name escapes me - this was a fair while ago), although he had to leave soon after the funeral as he was, understandably, knackered.
So me and my brother decided there's no fucking way that he was going to miss out at his funeral, and spent the next three months learning to play this fucking song on the bagpipes. Those motherfucker's are
hard to play, and neither he nor I had any real musical talent (I played the drums, but that didn't help at all).
But anyway, we learned this fucking song (and Three Blind Mice), and when we heard from my uncle that the old man had died we turned up at the funeral in full dress (kilts are shockingly expensive things to hire, by the way) and played the pipes behind his coffin.
It remains, and I suspect will always be, the most (trying to think of the right word) generous thing I've ever done.
_________________
Grim... wrote:
I wish Craster had left some girls for the rest of us.