With The Back Tuesday Club Monknash 19th December 2017

The Plough & Harrow

Monknash, Vale of Glamorgan

As I posted sometime ago, back in October I travelled down to Southsea in Hampshire to attend the UK gathering of the 59^th (Staffordshire) Division Association a.k.a. The Friends of Thury Harcourt. There it was my great pleasure to meet (for the first time with the exception of Michele Guillerm) other people with a shared interest in and/or history with the 59^th Division.

One such chap was John James from Bridgend in South Wales. At a quiet moment in the evening’s proceedings, he took me to one side and asked what my diary looked like in December and would I be interested in travelling to Wales to be a guest speaker at the annual Christmas gathering of a group of friends that collectively go under the name of the ‘Back Tuesday Club’.

‘The Back Tuesday Club’ is I learned a collection of likeminded individuals who meet weekly in a local pub for general chat and discussion around issues military. Each year, their ranks are increased for a planned trip to a theatre of war or some other site of military significance. Their club shirts feature a roll call of manoeuvres completed to date (The Western Front, Normandy, Arnhem, Waterloo and the Tower of London).... with the exception of Waterloo these are all places where I too have spent time. The ‘Back Tuesday’ term relates to the duration of these annual long weekend excursions.

It was with not a little trepidation that I accepted the invitation. The trepidation stemmed from the subject matter. Whilst I am very familiar now with my Grandfather’s service history as related in ‘A Pithead Polar Bear’ I have never presented on the subject (to date Powerpoint presentations have been confined to dry topics such as pharmaceutical drug registration etc etc!). This was something entirely different.

Nevertheless, I think that I pulled it off and the group of 30 or so somewhat inebriated Welshmen (mostly from the Vale of Glamorgan farming community), with whom I shared the evening in one of the bars of the rather lovely Plough & Harrow pub in a place called Monknash, were very appreciative.

What was especially pleasing for me was to be able to speak at length about the 59^th Division with John in the audience since his father was in killed in action fighting with the Division (2/6^th South Staffordshire Regiment) on 8^th July 1944 (two days before the birth of John). He lies in Cambes-en-Plaine CWGC Cemetery, Normandy.

It is making such connections and sharing such personal histories that I have found to be the most rewarding aspect of this project.

Yesterday I received a very nice email from the club:

 Dear Adrian,

I apologise for the delay in emailing, but I thought you would be pleased to learn of the universal appreciation given to your talk by the club members and the other attendees at the gathering in the Plough & Harrow pub on the 19th December 2017.

Everyone who attended felt the uniqueness and importance of what you were able to tell us. Most of those assembled were born after 1945, and have no direct experience of conditions during WW II. However, I think it is true to say that everyone present has a keen understanding of its huge significance, and its relevance to the well-being of those alive today.

As a group we make an annual excursion to some location that has some relevance in terms of military history, usually relating to one or other of the two world wars.

However, the relating of the experiences of a single individual who has endured the horrors of war always adds a different perspective.

Finally, may we wish you well, and long may you give others the benefit of your unique insights.

    Yours Very Sincerely

        Malcolm Lloyd
   
            Back Tuesday Club

I would like to thank all of the members of The Back Tuesday Club for the warm reception and kind words and to John for the initial invitation.

Cheers!

Adrian.

South Staffordshire Regiment headstone

Cambes-en-Plaine CWGC Cemetery.