Granda's Wartime Tales

When I was a little girl My grandfather had a tin With a sailor smoking a cigarette on the lid It was what he kept his medals in He called them Pip, Squeak and Wilfred And I asked him what they were He said the nineteen fourteen star, the British war medal and the Victory medal From World War One, but they're not rare He told me his war memories Could fill many a page Then said he’d been recruited Even though he was underage He told me he’d had a shock When on the internet he'd seen That a quarter of a million young men had signed up All under the age of eighteen He said recruits had a medical To make sure they were fit to fight They must have a minimum chest size of thirty-four inches And five feet three was the minimum height He told me he’d heard something That had really filled him with rage That recruitment officers got two shillings and sixpence If they turned a blind eye to someone under-age He added that he and some old army friends Used to spend hours chatting on a bench Recalling a soldier they’d known Too short to see over the edge of the trench My granda had asked his friend, a fourteen year old recruit What on earth he’d signed up for He reluctantly replied he had clamoured For the excitement of fighting in a war He told them of my father’s brother Who had been the first born son Blown to pieces at fifteen Recruited by passing for twenty-one He didn't survive to get medals His parents thought of him as brave Many times since then I have visited his grave No remains are buried Just a plaque that bears his name A list of lives that were lost No bodies left to claim He also told them about the time That my late Grandma spent Visiting her beloved Alexander As he lay in a fever tent He had typhoid fever And he managed to survive The doctors and nurses told her He was very lucky to be alive My grandfather would tell war stories That would chill you to the core Tales of the atrocities And casualties of war