In Toronto, my grandparents home, and my birthplace, it is the eleventh hour of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month, in the Year of our Lord 2014. It has been 100 years since the commencement of the Great War, and exactly 96 years since its end. In that war, my great grandfather, Cesidio Josie Fratini, who was born in italy, and never became a Canadian citizen, was a member of the Canadian armed forces. We know very little about his service. The year following the armistice, both my grandfather George Robert Pike, and my grandmother Doris Elizabeth Pike (née Beckett) were born - he in England, and she in Canada. The Second World War brought them together, in the USA, where they worked for British Security Commission (BSC) under Canadian William Stephenson, code name Intrrepid. We know that their work during the war was related to intelligence, but not much else. My grandfathere had a fairly uncanny knack for solving puzzles, and it is quite probable that he was involved in code breaking, or cryptography. My grandmother was a secretary to a general. In fact, One of the last times I spoke with her, when she was suffering from Alzheimers disease, she suddenly began speaking coherently, for a few words, about strafing Hamburg. This must have been a sudden recollection of a document, or conversation, from her time serving in the USA. She, and my grandfather, married there. Whatever secrets they each may have known, they took with them to the next life. My great uncle Jack Beckett was a member of the Royal Canadian Navy. He never had children of his own, and the last time I saw him, he gave to me several mementos from his life time. Among them was the band from his naval cap, which I am honoured to hold, until I, too, pass it on one day. In retrospect, I now know that all three of my grandmother, grandfather, and great uncle, sacrificed a great deal of their mental health, throughout their lives, for their service to king and country, to protect...
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 16:01:20 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015