Stephen McGinty listens to the voices of two generations, one
embattled by a past that damaged its future, the other embattled by a
future which promises only disillusion.
X MARKS the spot where two generations collide; the muddy turf of
no-man's-land where the attitudes of old soldiers from a war they
couldn't forget conflict with those of today's youth -- media-branded as
slackers. The gap has become a chasm.
The differences between the teenagers and twentysomethings of today
and those of 50 years past are stark. Yesterday's youngsters rose at six
to a choice of employment; today's rise around noon to none. Security
and expectations have dissolved into apathy and impotence.
Fifty years ago, a generation fought and died to deliver democracy
from the hands of Fascists. Today, many do not believe democracy to be
worth a ballot paper. Young soldiers once had a belief, fought for it,
and won -- an idea almost alien now in an oppressive right-wing
atmosphere of benefit cuts and the Criminal Justice Bill.
Now, both the forgotten generation of infantrymen and today's young
Generation X are lost, marginalised and branded fogeys or yobs; one
having lost its choices with its limbs in foreign battlefields or in the
harsh turmoil of the post-war years; the other never having been offered
a choice in the first place.
As one old soldier said with a bitter laugh: ''I'm glad that I'm on my
way out instead of on my way in.''
For the fighting men, World War Two was a battle of good versus evil,
right versus wrong; and many still peer at society with the same black
and white blinkers. To accept the smudged grey of contemporary Scotland
would be viewed as defeat. Scottish folk singer Eric Bogle's song The
Gift of Years contains simple lyrics which strike at the heart of both
generations' predicaments.
''And the country that you died for mate,
You would not know it now.
The future that we dreamed of mate,
Got all twisted up somehow.''
* AT the heart of Edinburgh's Craigmillar sits The Thistle Foundation,
founded in 1944 for disabled ex-servicemen. It has been home for decades
to three particular old soldiers, Jimmy Dickson, 76, John Patterson, and
Eddie Winters, 80. Alec McGuiness, 72, lives in Pollok, Glasgow where he
plays, ''father-confessor'' to the aged community.
Jimmy Dickson: ''A dive bomber dropped a load on my 25lb gun at Anzio.
It landed on top of me trapping my legs. I ended up losing one.''
John Patterson: ''On the fourth of July 1944, I got it. We crashed on
to a minefield. I was a wireless operator and air gunner flying
Wellingtons on bombing raids over Essen and Hamburg. My right leg was
blown off and I was unconscious for three weeks.''
Eddie Winters: ''Burma was Hell. I was in the Ist Battalion Royal
Scots. We fought to live and the Japanese couldn't have cared less. They
would die rather than surrender. The worst was seeing your mates gunned
down.''
Alec McGuiness: ''They talk about D-Day. Every day was D-Day . . . I
was in the Merchant Navy, then the Royal Navy. In one North Atlantic
crossing we lost 17 ships in three days.''
Jimmy Dickson: ''My wound began rotting then healed over under the
plaster but, Jesus, the smell. I was two years in hospital; then I had
to sweep railway stations.''
John Patterson: ''I worked for Scottish Airways at Renfrew but then my
medical sunk me; then the Civil Service for six months; then redundancy
and three years of hospitals operations and plastic surgery. Since then
I've lived here.''
Eddie Winters: ''I became a gardener in Craigmillar. To get the kids
to help, I used to sprinkle pennies in the ground and pretend to dig
them up. It was a lovely place back then; the breweries were open and
everyone had work.''
Jimmy Dickson: ''Sir William Wallace personally gave me a job at Brown
Brother's Engineering . . . I stayed over 30 years . . . Jobs today have
six-month contracts.''
Eddie Winters: ''We sold our country. We used to make things. Scotland
was famous round the world for engineering. Now it's Japan and Germany;
we would have been as well losing.''
Jimmy Dickson: ''The problem today is a lack of morals. They've just
sunk so low. Today's youth have no respect. I saw a young mum shouting
at her child: 'I'll f**king sort you out.' What sort of language is that
to use to a child?''
Eddie Winters: ''There are kids on the street corners with tins of
superlager trying to tap 20p from a pensioner! What life is that?''
John Patterson: ''So many people don't appreciate the sacrifice which
so many made. However, a few youngsters did say to me that they just
didn't know what it was like.''
Eddie Winters: ''We're in the way, that's all.''
Alec McGuiness: ''John Major stood on the D-Day anniversary and talked
about a debt that could never be repayed. He could start by giving us a
pension on a par with the rest of Europe.''
Eddie Winters: ''If there was a war today, we should put all the
Tories in front of the barricades and there wouldn't be a shot fired.
The enemy would die laughing at what was running our country.''
Alec McGuiness: ''There is no comparison with years ago. I would not
like to be young today. This is a troubled time. It's alright for people
to say we had nothing; but then there was hope.''
* AROUND the pool table in Ladymuir Community Centre in Pollok are
Eddie Gibbon, 23, James McGregor, 23, Frank McNeilage, 19, Edward
Louden, 16, and George Morrison, 28. Eddie Gibbon is a part-time barman,
George is a student, the rest are unemployed.
Frank McNeilage: ''Their mates died, my mates died. One overdosed on
heroin and drink killed the other. He got drunk, fell asleep and choked
on his own vomit.''
Edward Louden: ''My uncle was stabbed to death; he was a prison guard
and he tried to stop a gang of young guys noising up an old women. One
of them pulled out a sword and stabbed him. It was terrible. It stunned
the whole family.''
James McGregor: ''We've all had friends die.''
Frank McNeilage: ''Young people get the blame for all the trouble that
is going on; but it's not all of us; people forget that. But everyone is
just all lumped together.''
Eddie Gibbon: ''We get on well with the old people in the scheme. If
we saw someone breaking into a house, we'd chase them and get the gear
back. There is now a community spirit. A few years ago, we would have
helped them blag it.''
James McGregor: ''Last summer there were loads of us all cutting grass
and installing alarms for pensioners.''
Eddie Gibbon: ''The D-Day anniversary: what did it do for us and what
did it do for the old people with bad housing and poor pensions? I think
they could have found better ways to spend the money.''
George Morrison: ''The old veterans deserved their day. But what was
sickening was the Queen and Prime Minister hogging the coverage with
empty words. It was sick and dispiriting.''
Eddie Gibbon: ''Would I trade our future for their past? Sure. Who
wants TV and videos when you've money and work? You would have no time
to watch the television and a lot better things to do.''
Frank McNeilage: ''I don't think I'll ever get a decent job. If I do
get one, what will it be? #2 an hour? What kind of money is that? There
just isn't hope.''
George Morrison: ''I don't think that the democracy that we have is
fitting considering the number of men who fought to achieve it.
Democracy has been stalled. This country is choked by quangos. True
democracy lasts a day every four years.''
Young pool player: ''It's all 50 years ago. Why dig it up? Old people
go on about the good old days, then turn round and never stop
complaining. Just give us a break!''
Eddie Gibbon: ''Why would I fight for the bosses? That's the only
people who make money from wars. Everyone went into Kuwait to protect
oil supplies and no-one will touch Rwanda. It's a joke.''
Edward Louden: ''I think I would fight. At least it would be something
to do.''
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