For some time, many years in fact, people have heard us tell the stories about our family and suggested I write about them. Well that’s not going to happen, mostly. My family would probably take out a contract on me to shut me up and I am not entirely sure about the laws concerning statutory limitations so I’ll not risk it. However, of the many ‘Harry’ stories there are I can probably share a few without actually landing him in prison or me in the doghouse.

So here goes….

My Dad Harry.

Dad was a youngster during World War II and was evacuated to Wales. After the war though he was part of the National Service generation and knew that sooner or later he would get called up. Then he realised that if he went in voluntarily rather than wait for conscription and did an extra year he could not only choose which branch he went into but would also go in immediately at a slightly higher rank.

So there he was, barely out of his teens, a corporal in the Royal Air Force.  His rank and moustache added to the fact that like all of us Fishers he looked and sounded much older than his real age, meant that it was assumed he had been in active during the war and would therefore have at least one medal at the very minimum.

My Dad Harry is not overly fond of the typical, pompous, military officer types who strut up and down with those little sticks under one arm and bark at people so it was inevitable that he was going to be spending quite a lot of time in trouble. An early example went as follows while they were on parade.

Officer: No medals corporal?
Harry: No, Sir!
Officer: Why not?
Harry: I’m a coward, Sir!

Like I said, he spent a lot of time in trouble.

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