Regret to say I haven't posted here for ages. Been posting on Facebook. Mainly anti-Johnson, anti-Tory stuff. Lost a few buddies due to my rants. Didn't realise so many of them are Tory Brexiteers. Strange, because I always thought they were quite bright. I was wrong.
Anyway..., I recently posted a couple of photos of young Ukranian ladies going off to fight the war armed with guns and carrying rucksacks. Brave ladies. I presume they're just ordinary working citizens who've signed up to fight the Ruskies. Ordinary secretaries, hairdressers, business people, etc. I added the caption 'Brave Ukranian ladies off to war'. Then my sister (who I love dearly) commented "You’ve always had such scorn for our armed forces. Now you’re praising them! Make up your mind, our amazing guys and gals are so amazing." I responded with "Not entirely true. I never liked the way Dad was overlooked for promotion, presumably because he was a Territorial rather than a Regular soldier. I may be incorrect in that assumption, but that's the way I saw it. Also, he was basically a working-class lad in a profession which favoured upper-class, ex public school, officer types. That, as you rightly imply, did indeed annoy moi. Again, I may be wrong in this, but รง'est la vie. He did well to eventually become a Major when he should really have been a Colonel or Brigadier. And..., I was praising the Ukranian women soldiers, ordinary hairdressers, secretaries, business owners etc. - not the Brits who, as far as I know, haven't yet seen action out there."
This exchange got me thinking. Yes, she has a point about my er, lack of respect for the armed forces while she, being an ex-RAF officer, naturally supports them. Another point of difference: to put it simply, she likes England and I don't. Or, more accurately, I don't like what it's become under the recent twelve years of Tory rule. It's changed (and how!). But there are some people out there who still haven't moved on since England won the World Cup in '66, and who still retain a blinkered, Little England, island mentality, despite the disasters of Brexit and the years of corrupt Tory rule.
So..., when did I start feeling this way? Interestingly, my lack of admiration for the armed forces may have been triggered by, as I mentioned, my father's slow promotion, which I'm almost certain was due to his working-class background and his enlisting in the army (1939?) as a Territorial rather than a Regular (there is a difference). This almost certainly instilled in me a dislike for authority that remains with me to this day. Probably happened when I was about fifteen and about to leave school. At the time I was set to follow in Dad's footsteps and join the army, possibly via Welbeck and Sandhurst. Didn't happen. Didn't like the idea of saying yessir, no sir, three bags full sir, to some toffee-nosed twat. Went to art school instead. One extreme to t'other.
