The Poppy for Remembering

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The Poppy
The Poppy symbolises love
to give the troops – in injury -
the men and women who had all
and gave their all away for us -
whose youth and strength and right to be
is now in pained dependency
relying on the sympathy
and love of we who find the need
to buy The Poppy - wear with pride
this symbol – shoring up the grief
of those whose youth is gone to keep us safe

And do you say - The war is gone
They made their choice - and pass on by
Is what you next spend money on
of more importance than the life
that will be bound in loss and fight
that signed to keep the war away
from your safe door – your silent street
that stopped the sound of marching feet
from threat – or echoing around
your frightened spaces in this town
the places that will see your children grown

Remember that the world spins on

Without our men and woman’s help
its spin would take a different turn
and you and I – called in to fight
might well be injured in the stead
of those who bravely fought and fell
whose families – in grievous loss
now try to see the sense of it
pick up their own dependency
and set their self on courses new
where – living still – their loved ones need
no more than help to live and to succeed
-

Below are songs about different conflicts/wars
World War 1
Mametz Wood

"Let our memories live on"
The regiment was mostly gone

All pals together joined the war
The Fusiliers now gone before
were good brave men - who served and fell
at Mametz Wood through gas and shell
ch
The fields are dressed in vivid green
Tall stones are ranked in greyish sheen
where all those men - who served us well
at Mametz Wood collapsed and fell
ch
Now birdsong warbles in the trees
Where summer flowers aswarm with bees
remark the gentle drifting spell
of Mametz Wood whose poppies tell
no ch
a tale of Royal Welch Fusiliers
whose brave young men these many years
have lain below the place they fell
by war which put boys into hell
ch
Now young men still so bright and brave
Remember comrades - each who gave
his life to serve through shot and shell
You serve us now  You serve us well

"Let our memories live on"
The Regiment was mostly gone

"Let our memories live on" - part of the inscription to those who fell at Mametz Wood, on the Somme.


The Tara from Holyhead

Oh Megan fach don’t play that serenade
The one my lovely darling used to know
He laughed and joked whenever it was played
Oh Megan fach please no Megan no

Hibernia was such a safe old ship
From Holyhead across the Irish Sea
Dun Laoghaire back to Holyhead each trip
Megan fach why did it have to be

They sent her out to Egypt for the war
Renamed her Tara not to get confused
What do you think they needed my boy for
And all those lovely men they took and used

A u-boat in the Gulf of Sollum aimed
She sank just one month after she had gone
And some men died but some of them were maimed
The rest were starved beneath the desert sun

And now its 1916 and they’re back
Four months they starved til some of them were dead
But my boy’s not amongst them - that is clear
Was he blown to bits or starved instead

Lovely men from war to Holyhead
Back to start the fighting once again
How..how can I face them now he’s dead
I’m so glad they’re back - those lovely men

Oh Megan fach don’t play that serenade
The one my lovely darling used to know
He laughed and joked whenever it was played
Oh Megan fach please no Megan no
-

The Stallion Tom



Fair stood the wind fur France
The waves wus roarin mighty
Fair stood the wind fur France
An wi wuz leavin (outa-back in) Blighty

The stallion Tom an mi

Wi served the mare-run farmland

Then Kitchener called fur wi

So wi walked down frum Cleveland
 ch
An Tom ee wuz called to war
To aul the guns in battle
The reason they called im fur
To aul wur bullets rattle

An ee wuz a Shire alright
Iz eart wuz big an steady
Fur aulin the guns all night
An ee stood ever ready

But Tom i wuz flesh an bone
Wi shells an bullets rainin
An ee’d work on alone
You'd not ear Tom complainin

The shell that kilt im came
As a stood on iz leaside
Twas wun that bore mi name
An that wuz ow owd Tom died


Ee lay as if asleep
Along the meada dreamin
The mud it wuz slick an deep
The very air wuz screamin

An a wuz screamin too
The shell took both mi legs out
Well wat wuz a to do
The dragged mi te the dugout

 ch 
A dreamed an screamed fur Tom
A dreamed that wi wuz walkin
Along the fields of ome
An Tom could ear mi talkin
Ah wish a ad died wi Tom
A wud ni wonce abandon
The patched mi an auled mi ome
Ee Tom i were a grand un
 ch 
The stallion Tom an mi
Wi wauked the northern farmland
Iz mares an then mi tea
Wen wi wuz ome in Cleveland

Fair stood the wind fur France
The waves wus roarin mighty
Fair stood the wind fur France
An wi wuz leavin(outa-back in) Blighty

Note line 2 of chorus changed to ‘rain was pourin mighty'  for vs 4 to vs7

 ch

World War 2

HMT Scotia - Holyhead - Cross Channel Ship

Mustered ships in the Channel
Little boats are bringing home the boys
Mustered ships in the Channel
Scotia sank whilst bringing home the boys

When Scotia sailed out from Southampton
In 1940 twenty-sixth of May
To Dover then across the Channel
To find our boys and bring them all away

Three thousand men climbed up the gangplank
Settled down and weary weary lay
in every space to rest from battle
Patient they all wait to come away

Mustered ships in the Channel
Little boats are bringing home the boys
Mustered ships in the Channel
Scotia sank whilst bringing home the boys

Back to Dover this precious cargo
Fighting men who would return one day
To walk to Deutschland marching over
they who strafed and drove our boys away

Brave Scotia back at dawn to Dover
overloaded from the weary fray
Three thousand safely back to England
Then returned to bring more boys away

Mustered ships in the Channel
Little boats are bringing home the boys
Mustered ships in the Channel
Scotia sank whilst bringing home the boys

Bombs and blast across the Channel
Captain Hughes manoeuvred on his way
His Lewis and his Bren gun chattered
to Dunkirk to bring more boys away

Two thousand French in desperation
climbed aboard and Scotia sailed away
Beat under waves and waves of bombers
Full speed in blast to bring French boys away
Mustered ships in the Channel
Little boats are bringing home the boys
Mustered ships in the Channel
Scotia sank whilst bringing home the boys

Abandon ship We’re hit abaft-deck
SOS the wireless blown away
With sinking keel and keeling starboard
Abandon ship and get our boys away

At full speed Esk came in to rescue
machine-gunned men from bombers in affray
Not one live man left in the Channel
Esk sailed home to bring our boys away

Mustered ships in the Channel
Little boats are bringing home the boys
Mustered ships in the Channel
Scotia sank whilst bringing home the boys

The Scotia out of Holyhead came
A gallant ship was sunk that dreadful day
The first of June in 1940
As Hughes and Pritchard brought our boys away

Captain Hughes praised all his crew men
Each man served his turn in his own way
In fear and  fire our boys to safety
From Dunkirk they brought our boys away

Mustered ships in the Channel
Little boats are bringing home the boys
Mustered ships in the Channel
Scotia sank whilst bringing home the boys
Mustered ships in the Channel
Little boats are bringing home the boys
Mustered ships in the Channel
Scotia sank whilst bringing home the boys

-

The Dunkirk Miracle - Lest We Forget

Lest we forget
the boys we love are dying
Lest we forget
The boys are laying down their lives
Lest we forget
the boys we love are dying
Lest we forget
The boys are laying down their lives

In 1940
now the world is desperate
The little boats
armadas in the sea
Are bringing home
the army - it is desperate
Such bravery
Such gallantry
ch
But our brave boys
In St Venant they hold the line
The Royal Welch
The Durham Infantry
Were left behind
to guard the army - hold the line
In bravery
In gallantry
ch
So don’t forget -
in Dunkirk’s desperate miracle
We’re losing men
to set the others free
In hundreds they’re
a party to this miracle
Their bravery
Their gallantry

Lest we forget
the boys we love are dying
Lest we forget
The boys are laying down their lives
Lest we forget
the boys we love are dying
Lest we forget

The boys are laying down their lives


(of over 800 men in the RWF only about 88 escaped from St Venant)

-

Cranage Airmen - Defenders of Peace

They flew over Liverpool
In clouds of smoke
And flowers of flame
They flew over Liverpool
To keep us safe
They played the game

But it was no game at all
Their lives floating high
Dying to save us all
They fell from the sky
ch
They came from across the earth
To win the world war
Showing what they were worth
Returning no more
ch
In Liverpool people saw
In gratitude there
Those men in their ariel war
To lift their despair
ch
But sixty years on who knows
Remembers their game
Their airfield is gone - who goes
To think of their name
ch
Those boys are all dead or old
Defences are down
Yet still all their gift was gold
Their bravery shown
ch
From Byley remember still
Young men in their prime
Winning by force of will
Remember their time

They flew over Liverpool
In clouds of smoke
And flowers of flame
They flew over Liverpool
To keep us safe
They played the game
-
PQ - 17 to Murmansk  - 1942

In 1942 - in June - the merchant ships formed up
Loaded to the gunnels with their planes and guns and tanks
Enough to serve an army - 50,000 in the field
The PQ - 17 formed up in ranks

Fifty-six from Rekyavik - nine columns in the sea
Thirty-five were merchantmen - the rest their guardian fleet
Seven knots - or eight - with planes and u-boats looking on
Crossed QP - 13's returning beat

Air attacks were sinking ships too slow to fast-escape
Tirpitz out of Trondheim - thirty knots along the breeze
Admiral Pound - in London - over-ruled his naval staff
Ordered convoy-scatter to the seas

Merchantmen - with no defence - abandoned to their fate
Fanned to north nd east - and south and east - to stay afloat
Aiming in to Russian ports or aiming out to ice
Targets in a duck-shoot - sunk by rote

Empire Byron, Carlton, Daniel Morgan, Honomu
Navarino, Bolton Castle, Paulus Potter sank
Earlston, Pankraft, River Afton, Samuel Chase as well
Zafaron and Fairfield City sank

Peter Kerr and Pan Atlantic and John Witherspoon
Alcoa Ranger, Olopana, Hartlebury too
Aldersdale the oiler, Empire Tide the CAM-ship sank
Hoosier and El Capitan and crew

All the Barents Sea was scattered with their life-boat men
Desperate men with frostbite and with death upon each mind
With no food and baling ocean - aiming in to land
Fearful of the day and what they'd find

Washington and high explosives - deck ablaze - was left
Gun crews in two lifeboats pulled for ten long days - or more
Waving off their would-be-rescue-ship they watched it sink
Rigged their sail and rowed to meet the shore

Ayrshire - armed for battle - herded three ships to the ice
Silver Sword, Ironclad and Troubadour the three she caught
Repainted white they blended in to skirt the Barents Sea
Stealthy - crept across the reach the port

Murmansk closed - Archangel aimed for - crossing the White Sea
Eleven battered ships made landfall - ports and rocks and bays
Stalin's greeting accusation - "Letting down the War"
Stopped the convoys til the Autumn days

Zamalek and Rathlin - Bellingham and Northern Gem
Ocean Freedom, Azerbaijan, made the port at last
Ben Harrison and Silver Sword, Ironclad and Troubadour
Winston Salem the last ship that passed

PQ - 17 a gallant group of ships and men
Paid the price for bad decisions - leaving them as prey
Took the deaths and took the blame for all their grand success
They helped to win the war in their own way

Latterly all men were honoured for their convoy-run
Gauntlet-run for years across the German ships and planes
When Murmansk - that hero city - told what they had done
Honoured them for Soviet battle gains

-

Murmanetz - Ice Patrol 18 - July 1942


Murmanetz from Archangelsk on Ice Patrol 18
A wooden ship - with 28 - across the Barents Sea
As Captain Kotzov knew full well - great danger loomed ahead
Where PQ17 abandoned merchant ships for dead

DonBas swamped - but limping in to Archangelsk at last
With Daniel Morgan's sunken crew they crossed the cold White Sea
Marooned on Gasinaya Island Olopana's crew
From two long weeks adrift in lifeboats twelve men breathed anew

Murmanetz moved men to safety - in Belushya Bay
Where settlements could bring them comfort til they went away
On July 17th the flotsam on the Barents swell
Included frozen bodies - oil-slicked - scarred by shot and shell

Seven lifeboats all in tow Murmanetz chugged on
One hundred men - from sunken ships - to reach the Empire Tide
Though frozen - men were still alive - from rafts and boats they came
With frost-bite wounds and burns to tend but living just the same

Murmanetz was overflowing with her rescued men
As every space was used at last and still they needed help
Hot tea and soup - and tending wounds the days and nights blurred on
And every crewman stood his watch until with danger gone

Winston Salem on the beach filled with new planes and tanks
Towed at high tide - anchored fast - to Murmanetz at sea
A crew made up of fear and dread and mothers' shipwrecked sons
To Archangelsk the Winston Salem took new tanks and guns

Murmanetz - from Archangelsk - on Ice Patrol 18
A wooden ship - 200 tons - across the Barents Sea
A saviour of the shipwrecked crewmen - Human fine and brave
Her men deserve the highest praise from those whose lives they saved

1st Gulf War

-
Berlin Wall


Flowers of Freedom

In no-man's-land a crackle-hail of guns
And as he leapt to climb the wire
A mile or so from here
 His back ran red
His back ran red
His back ran red with Flowers of Freedom

Released from this Grey Life of State
The state of serfs and dogs and guns
A mile or so from here
He blossomed red
He blossomed red
He blossomed red with Flowers of Freedom

Across the years of no-man's-land
Whenever our young men could run
A mile or so from here
They fell down red
They fell down red
They fell down red with Flowers of Freedom

In 1989 they turned
In cars - on foot - through Hungary
They turned their backs on us
To gather up
To gather up
To gather up their Flowers of Freedom

Thousands picked and wafted perfume
West and East to call us over
A mile or so from here
Where we'd be red
Where we'd be red
Where we'd be red with Flowers of Freedom

Soon the wall which made us Eastern
Fell - demolished by their clamour
A mile or so from here
We ran to claim
We ran to claim
We ran to claim our Flowers of Freedom
-
Curds & Whey

We're  saving  the  poor  little  curds  and  whey

We've  taken  the  cream  and  we've  run

We're  saving  the  dear  little  Kurds  today
Just  look  and  see  what  we've  done

We promised them freedom from Saddam
We promised them air fire and food
but they are brown gypsies    who wander about
Our help won't do them any good
ch
The Kurds and the Shi'ites are used to
their shoving about by Saddam
and they are brown gypsies    who wander about
Not Brits nor from Good Uncle Sam
ch
The oil situation's becoming a mess
We need all the oil we can get
We'll help the brown gypsies    who wander about
but Saddam will still slip our net
ch
We taught them to fight for their freedom
five years ago in ninety-one
They're little brown gypsies    who wander about
and they're very easy to con
ch
We left them in mountain they'd fled to
We left them in marsh where they died
But they're just brown gypsies    who wander about
Their death was like mass suicide
ch
They're shot at by Iraq and Turkey
but only those left to survive
They're only brown gypsies    who wander about
just waiting for help to arrive
ch
Their children are skinny and dying
There's no gratitude in those folk
They're only brown gypsies    who wander about
Our helping them out is no joke
ch
ch
Bosnia
Col-Sgt P Humphreys CGC
(Conspicuous Gallantry Cross - Bosnia 1995)

Over the top it wasn’t
They never were down in a trench
Their Saxons were out in the open
And there was no place to re-trench

It’s a curious job - this policing
The whole population needs calm
To get on with strange-normal living
You’re there to see they take no harm
ch
Sgt Humphreys was out in Gorazde
Not fighting but keeping things calm
Patrolling around Vitkovici
Just there to see they took no harm
ch
The Bosnian snipers were killing
And stopping the peace and the calm
Three hours he fired straight into Serb guns
To see that their guns did no harm
ch
And that was the 20th of April
Vitkovici relaxed into calm
People got on with their living
And no-one came to any harm
ch
A village just west of Gorazde
Where fire shattered convoys and calm
Sgt Humphreys turned on a great fire shield
To keep the food convoy from harm
ch
Delivering women in labour
To hospital - safely - and calm
Sgt Humphreys - the Fusilier Policeman
Ensured that his men took no harm
ch
In presence of mind and aggression
In spirit and coolness and calm
Conspicuous Gallantry earned him
The Cross for ensuring no harm
ch        (+ repeat last verse and chorus)

Kosovo - refugees in England

The Gander

And the boys chase the gander
Out of time and far from home
And the boys chase the gander
In the green field

They go to school in some strange land
And learn to speak the language
The language of the schoolyard
Rough-and-tumble
ch
They go back to the old folks home
And watch the television
And sometimes it shows battles
Bombs and bloodshed
ch
At week-ends they are taken out
To Camelot and swimming
Where everyone is laughing
And not fleeing
ch
They wonder when they'll go back home
They saw on television
That now have stopped the battles
Bombs and bloodshed
ch
They hear their parents talk at night
They know they must go back soon
Men with guns once made them walk
For their safety
ch
And sometimes they have nightmares now
They watch the television
And play like boys from battles
Bombs and bloodshed
ch x 3
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 ch
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When This Delightful Dawning Ends
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