From: Norman Bassett, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Another post-Great War memory. My mother told me her father had an arms cupboard under the stairs and kept the firing pins for a couple of Lee-Enfields, a Lewis Gun and a Vickers MG in a metal-lined wallet in his breast pocket. There was a loaded revolver under the sink for household defence. My grandfather was a section leader in the local "Army Lads" - retired regular soldiers who "kept an eye on things" in their part of post-Great War Manchester. This organisation seems to have existed all over the UK and to have been created when the men came home with their guns from the Great War - I was wondering if anyone had any memories of it? My grandfather came home in a wheelbarrow one day in 1926 looking lumpy around the body under his clothes and being wheeled along by two mates pretending to be drunk. He'd got metal in his leg from a kind of 6-shot trap-gun and three bullet wounds in his stomach from a spray from a Lewis Gun he'd received while leading a group of 14 Army Lads investigating a small civilian aerodrome in the Midlands. The allegation had been made to the Army Lads that there was a correlation between the current influenza epidemic and the flights of aeroplanes over towns. Regards Norman Bassett drakenfels.org Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________________________________ T O P I C A http://www.topica.com/t/17 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
