Song appropriate for 11.11

Subject: Appropriate for 11.11
From: GUEST,Bob Chiswick
Date: 11 Nov 15 - 06:37 PM

A tribute to Tiny Somme Gray

http://youtu.be/CGBjcIN5Ohg

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-31967883

Subject: RE: Appropriate for 11.11
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Nov 15 - 10:56 PM

The text accompanying the BBC Story:

On 20 March 1917, a baby girl was born in Northfleet, Kent, and given a name heavy with history - Somme, writes Mark Sanders.
She's carried that name throughout her long life, in memory of the father she never knew.
Her birth certificate records her full name: Tiny Somme Gray. "Tiny" was her mother's nickname, "Somme" marks the tragedy that tore through the family. Her father Herbert Gray was killed in the Battle of the Somme just five months before her birth.
Tiny Somme Gray, later to become Hammond, has just turned 98 and lives in a care home in Gravesend.
She explains how some people react to her name: "There's a name, they say. What you got that for? My father was killed on The Somme, that's why. Oh, they say, I wouldn't want to be named after that."
Every time she signs her name or sees it on an official document, she's reminded of her father. "Every time, whenever I have to put my name Tiny Somme. I'm very proud of it, always have been."
Herbert Gray's wife Emma thought he wouldn't be called up to fight because of his job at a cement works. But Herbert left this important wartime industry to earn more money at a paper mill. He was eventually conscripted in 1916 and while on leave in June that year, his daughter was conceived. Pte Herbert Gray of The Sherwood Foresters was killed four months later - one of 420,000 British casualties in the battle.
One German officer, Friedrich Steinbrecher, wrote of the bloodbath: "Somme. The whole history of the world cannot contain a more ghastly word."
Herbert's widow Emma never talked about his death with her daughter and never really explained why she called her only child Somme. "It's a very special name I said to my mum. Well, she said, you can't forget your name."
As a little girl, Tiny Somme was sometimes teased by children for having a name "out in France". In 1923, when just six, she was at the unveiling of the Northfleet War Memorial, where her father's name is inscribed. Her mother would never go there.
And yet, she gave her daughter a name that would act as a living memorial to the man who would never return from the Somme.

Subject: RE: Appropriate for 11.11
From: michaelr
Date: 12 Nov 15 - 02:15 AM

What a story.

Subject: RE: Appropriate for 11.11
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Nov 15 - 04:08 AM

The YouTube video is a song about the story, so I moved it to the music section. Bob, it would be nice to tell us about the song and post the lyrics. Links don't tell the whole story.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Song appropriate for 11.11
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Nov 15 - 08:17 AM

That means I still don't know my way around MC Joe!

Subject: RE: Song appropriate for 11.11
From: Mr Red
Date: 13 Nov 15 - 03:52 AM

D-Day song by the songwriter who was there a tribute to those who didn't survive. Very evocative.

Subject: RE: Song appropriate for 11.11
From: GUEST,Bob Chiswick
Date: 07 Jun 17 - 11:48 AM

Only a couple of years late but here's the lyrics folks!


TINY SOMME   (Bob Chiswick ©2015)

Herbert Gray said to his wife                        
'Times are hard and the money is tight'                        
She reasoned with him, 'stay with your job, love,                  
It's safe and we'll be alright'                                    

But he took the risk, the living was good                     
He looked after her the best way he could
Then came the call to serve uniform
And he did what a patriot should

Private Herbert Gray
Private Herbert Gray
Your title is brave
But what's in a name
Private Herbert Gray

He wrote to her from the front line
This Somme is a hell, never made for mankind
I don't want to return after my leave
Is this what the Almighty designed?

He went back to fight, fearing the worst
The ground that he held, he knew was cursed
She wrote to say, 'you'll be a dad, love'
But his destiny got to him first

Private Herbert Gray
Private Herbert Gray
Your title is brave
But what's in a name
Private Herbert Gray

The christening named the child Tiny Gray
She'd never know a father's embrace
Her mother made sure she'd honour him
Someone that she'd never face

'One day a husband may change your name
But the ones I give you, will always remain
And a French battleground will always remind you
Of something you'll never explain'

Young Tiny Gray
Young Tiny Gray
I'll always say
Be proud of your name
Tiny Somme Gray