Hello again!
Today I will be talking about the two world wars: World War One and World War Two. However, this has a unique twist to them…..
I have been learning about the wars in school and my teacher ended up talking about her grandfather who was in the war. He was in the First World War and sadly died just before the Second World War. Before he signed up to fight in the war, he was a milker at a farm. That farm was actually Stepney Green Farm which is still there today. He would milk the cows by taking milk from them and pour it into a massive urn. The urn looked like a big boiler [I was able to see it in a picture, which my teacher brought in to school] but instead of hot water, it was filled with milk. Along the streets, people waited for him to deliver their milk and pour it into their glass bottles. That was before the war.
When he was in the war he didn’t only earn medals but he lived a part of his life away from home and lived in trenches which were infested with rats, very dirty and riddled with disease. Thankfully, the soldiers’ pet dogs chased the rats and sometimes ended up eating them too.
Anyway, the milker soldier was a very brave man and survived the war very well. Now, you might be wondering why the war happened. I’m going to give you a quick flashback as to why happened. In 1914 it started when the heir to the Austrian-Hungarian throne was assassinated by a man from Serbia.The heir’s name was [Archduke] Franz Ferdinand. The man from Serbia wanted justice for his country and therefore killed the heir to the throne. This created war leading to countries such as Great Britain, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Hungary, France and even USA going to war with and against each other. Great Britain, along with France, USA won in the end [woohoo to us!] and war was over. Or was it?
Unfortunately, World War One led to World War Two for a completely different reason mainly involving a certain person, who lived in Germany, named Adolf Hitler. This was all partly due to Germany’s money loss and because Hitler went to Poland to make war but was told not to…….more on that another time!
Back to the milker soldier….He obviously returned home and had his family to look forward to. A few years later, with his wife expecting their youngest son (just happens to be my teacher’s father), he fell ill and died. This story inspired me as not many soldiers survived and my teacher is actually a grand-daughter of a surviving soldier of the First World War.
That’s all from me today but you will hear more. Bye!
Maryam
PS: Thanks to my teacher for allowing me to share this story about your grandfather.
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