TRUE GRIT

Just to finish off the weekend of Remembrance, I was at AFC Penistone Church (PCFC Reserves) yesterday when they played a league fixture against Denaby Main (another old colliery team). The players had their silence for a minute once they had "warmed up" and just before the kick off. Cannot quite see the sense in having the warm up and then spending 5 minutes (or so) reflecting...but hey ho it happens all over the country.

It was a battle of a Sheffield and Hallamshire Premier League game which the home team won 4-1, surviving quite a battering from their visitors. Today I watched the "Armistice Parade" in Penistone town which was impressive; you know Band, Veterans, Army Cadets, Scouts Guides, Cubs, Brownies and to create a trio of silences, this afternoon Hepworth United 18s were playing at Shelley in a Huddersfield and District Junior league game and both teams acquitted themselves with dignity at the minute silence and then the game started. Under the control of "their" referee, who was not "United Nations" by any means, we witnessed a messy war like game under his control and lost 0-2. Both goals offside!

So it was a busy weekend.

With the last war in mind, I must mention Peter Anderson Logie Liddle. With an array of names like that, Peter was a true Scot, born in  Falkirk, who lived much of his life after the war in Surrey. He had a close connection to Charterhouse School, where his grandchildren went and I taught them and got to know Peter's large family. We were invited recently to his memorial service in Sheffield at the University building which was designed by the "Liddle" Architects firm based in the city. Peter had lived to 98 years old and had trained to fly in Lancaster bombers in Canada during the last war. He served with 460 Squadron Royal Australian Airforce.

On November 23rd 1943 his plane was shot down over enemy territory and Peter was one of two who made it out of the plane alive. It was his 3rd sortie, the average number at the time was 5. Imprisoned, he always regarded himself as lucky to have survived and he lived his life making the most of what he had been "given". The camp was in Muhlberg Stalag IV-B and today there is a museum at the site which includes Peter's accurately drawn site map of the camp including the football pitch. He was liberated on St George's Day 1945. 

Grandson Luke was a decent footballer and like his his grandfather (below), a keen Wednesday fan for 50 years at least. There is football in the blood.