My Maternal Grandad I never knew, he died before I was born, but my mother told me his love of Opera was passed on through her and to me, unlike my mother though I like the Operas he liked, Mozart and Wagner etc but she preferred Verdi and Puccini.
My Paternal GF was the one that is the subject of this song HERE he really did survive the First World War, mostly by the methods outlined in the song, the details whch were gleaned from family stories, many of which were ended abruptly when us kids were noticed listening!! He really was nearly drowned in a latrine during the German advance on Amiens in the spring of 1918, he died in the early 1950s from (according to the Post Mortem) the effects of a substantial piece of shrapnel lodged in his pericardium for 40 years.