Uncle Mort said:
Until his funeral, I had no idea that my boring dad had escaped from a German prisoner of war camp to England, or that he'd been a commando in Normandy prior to the invasion there. He told us he'd just been doing his job, just like everyone else. I always thought that was pretty cool.
Superb!
When I was a window cleaner, we had an old boy as a customer. One day we were having lunch on a bench outside his house and he comes out to offer us some tea. We got talking and it turns out that he was on
HMS Rodney during the Battle of the Atlantic and the hunt for the
Bismark. He had loads of hair-raising stories and some great photos.
Likewise a very old music teacher I had when I started secondary had fought in the Battle of Britain.
I even remember being out hillwalking in Perthshire (whilst in my early teens) and meeting a very old boy (he was in his 90's then) who had fought in WW1!