What got you interested?

Discussion in 'Historiography' started by Gage, Mar 4, 2006.

  1. Slipdigit

    Slipdigit Old Hickory Recon

    I don't know. It's always been an interest to me, even when I was a young (and I mean young) boy. I don't remember not knowing about WWII and not being interested in.
     
  2. Smudger Jnr

    Smudger Jnr Our Man in Berlin

    AHD,

    Wonderful post.
    It Really had me thinking of my childhood and the war game playing with friends, when your own imagination knew no bounds.
    The words, Your Dead and the reply Oh No I'm not, you missed me!!
    No computers to idle away the time back then.

    Regards
    Tom
     
  3. duncr

    duncr Member

    Both my Mother and Father served during the war,all my reletives bar 1 served during the war, you were told stories from a very young age and in the 60's there was lots of war oriented programs on TV, add to that Construction kits and then stand back and light blue touch paper...............and of I go into a full blown love of it all, I guess its in the blood as I was knocked back from joining due to my eyesight, but my step son is in the QRL and due back out to Afgan for a second tour sometime this year. Old habits die hard ;)
     
  4. Elven6

    Elven6 Discharged

    I really don't know what got me interested, I was always interested in the two World Wars to be honest, when my parents found out they told me my grandfather on my dad's side was a WWII veteran so you can probably imagine how excited a 6 or 7 year old would be after learning of such a thing. After his death it really felt like I took him for granted, he had so many stories to share but very few were actually willing to listen, always feels like I could have asked him so much more.
     
  5. urqh

    urqh Senior Member

    If I could award a prize, that is one of the best things I've read on here for a while. Thanks for taking me back to those times.

    Missed out one thing...The paper caps....mine always used to have too many blanks.

    Oh and the one kid that turned up in his cowboy outfit.....
     
  6. Passchendaele_Baby

    Passchendaele_Baby Grandads Little Girl

    Trust me, it's a LONG story.
    Dad was channel surfing [:sign_omg:] and the very last bit of Pearl Harbour was on, :patriot[1]::jpflag[1]: and it looked sorta-interesting, so i found out what it was called and done research, and from there it went into the Pacific, to Japan, to America, to Passchendaele, etc.
     
  7. arkrite

    arkrite Senior Member

    At Home Dad, Thats the sort of childhood I had in the fifties. Only the location is different, mine was in the midlands " Black Country".
    The men would get together and swop war stories....Up to their necks in muck and bullets. I wish I had been old enough to realise just what I was listening to. Researchers would fall over themselves for such stories.
    Thankfully I have never been called upon to " Play War" for real in my lifetime and those men had a major part in me not being required.
    My interest must have started when my dads army greatcoat was draped over my bed in winter. ( we had real winters back then.)
     
  8. Kieron Hill

    Kieron Hill Senior Member

    Whats got me interested WW2?

    Growing up in the 70's 25years after the whole world was at war for 6 years, all to fresh in the heads of so many people. We had a lady that would regularly run round are village doing strange things, my mum told
    me that she suffered shell shock when her house was blown up in a bombing raid, An old tree in Waterperry Lane that you could climb into where some children in the 50's had been playing and found a un
    exploded bomb, The remains of an old rusting tank on tank hill, The old concrete basis of huts used for the prisoner war camp, Afternoons finding empty bullet cases on the rangers, arms linked in the playground singing
    "Whooo wwaaannnttts ttooo plllaaaayyy wwwwaaaarrr", trips to museums, Action Man, Airfix models, toy soldiers, toy guns, an armoured car my Dad built me for the 1977 Silver Jubilee village fete, my mum cut up his
    uniforms to make me and my brother miniture ones, We even had a
    artillery piece that fired blanks. Nights spent in an old army tent, a webbing belt, an itchy old Battledress...those were the days.

    But the biggest thing, was not having a Grandads knee to seat on and enjoy stories of old....he was one of Monty's boys, A Desert Rat, a Tommy and Queensman, best of all he was my Grandad :poppy:
     
    Paul Reed likes this.
  9. Cats Eyes Cunningham

    Cats Eyes Cunningham I Like Spitfires.

    My Dad. He has hundreds of books and I began reading them about aged 15. He still has lots i havent read yet which is great. I also remember a visit to the Imperial War Museum when I was about 10 years old which maybe started my interest for WW2.
     
  10. Paul Reed

    Paul Reed Ubique

    But the biggest thing, was not having a Grandads knee to seat on and enjoy stories of old....he was one of Monty's boys, A Desert Rat, a Tommy and Queensman, best of all he was my Grandad :poppy:

    Quite superb...

    This thread is a real classic in every sense.
     
  11. Steve G

    Steve G Senior Member

    This place. I stumbled in here looking for a bit of info' about a rellie. Now it's my main forum and I'm itching to see old and new films and have even bought a book!


    Sadly, there can be a down side:

    I thought Mangele was an interesting man, with interesting experiments


    THAT has left me feeling physically nauseous. Quite ruined my afternoon.

    :poppy:
     
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  12. At Home Dad (Returning)

    At Home Dad (Returning) Well-Known Member

    Thanks for the kind words about my memories,
    good to see that most here have similar!

    Yes, cant forget caps and capguns, Urgh, but also remember
    loving the smell of cordite when you used your finger to ignite
    them, and it would melt a bit of thumbnail black for weeks!

    Also, cant forget books! I guess it included Sven Hassell,
    Purnells history of ww2, loving titles like 'German Secret
    Weapons' and 'German Tanks, 1939-45', I've still got them
    and they're still an enjoyable read!

    Kind regards all!
     
  13. ummagumma

    ummagumma Junior Member

    Surprisingly I have very similar memories to yours, AHD, although on a much smaller scale as I grew up in Bermuda. My dad served with the convoys, so we had his stories, and I too remember the war comics, cap guns, Action Man & GI Joe, et al. But my older brother was the one who was really into it back then; indeed he read Mein Kampf when he was 12(!) (Don't worry, he turned out alright!)

    It's really been these last few years that I've become fascinated by the wartime experience and its enormity. Trying to come to terms with the evil that was Nazism and the suffering of so many in that time. Visualizing the various battles fought in Europe, and tracing the remains of them today.

    It's also the good people of this forum who make it that much more interesting with their debates on various points of battles and operations. I've come to have a much better understanding of the nature of the war and it's warriors from these pages.

    Cheers to all of this board's WWII veterans - my glass is raised to you!
     
  14. Tomcat

    Tomcat Junior Member

    My interested started as far back as I can remember for I have always had this interest in the military in all its infamy and glory, from Ancient Rome to modern warfare, but ww2 just kinda sticks out among them all. This is the area of interest I have started my library on and I don't know what it is but it is just intriguing.
     
  15. mosin_nagant

    mosin_nagant Member

    Two years ago i was in Grade 10. In Elementary School I HATED History. In Canada it is mandatory for students to take history in grade 10. I was schocked about this and decided to take the lower level of History. I actually ended up liking the course and took it again in grade 11! Now history is my favourite subject.

    P.S. None of my ancestors served in WWII or WWI or any wars.
    Weird

    Jills
     
  16. mosin_nagant

    mosin_nagant Member

    I always had an interest in collecting objects, mostly from the past. So that could have possibly lead to my interest in History and WWII.
     
  17. Tom Canning

    Tom Canning WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    AhD's tale had me wishing that I had been younger so that I could play as he did - sounds like more fun than what we were playing at ......

    Duncr -
    if your step son is in the QRL - he is in a good mob - although they appear to be stuck in the role of formation recce at this time - and into the forseeable future which is too bad as the were a good battle unit in WW2 - and Gulf 11.

    Cheers
     
  18. Paul Reed

    Paul Reed Ubique

    AhD's tale had me wishing that I had been younger so that I could play as he did - sounds like more fun than what we were playing at ......


    Morning, Tom. I am sure when you and the other vets here read about us all running round the woods, making Airfix models and dressing up Action Man, you must think... what?!

    However, you've got to understand that anyone here who grew up between the 50s and 70s lived and breathed WW2. Our young culture was saturated with material on WW2, and many of us had fathers and grandfathers who were able to give us an insight into the 'real war' behind our childhood fascination. The fact that there are so many of us here now as members of this forum shows that fascination stayed, and I'm sure you'll agree it's important that the knowledge of what happened in that war is passed on to the next generation, and the next...

    It's so different to childhood now. My kids are 18 and 10. My son, the eldest, grew up in an age where there was little reference to any war. His Action Men all looked like camp sportsmen. They didn't have weapons, they had make-up bags. I can remember when he was about 5 it was virtually impossible to buy toy soldiers in a toy shop... many refused to stock them. That is mad. The big gap between him and my daughter shows how things have come full circle. "War Toys" are back on the shelves, and kids play computer games, many of which are about WW2. I hope all that breeds a generation just like us with a fascination for the history of the war that lasts a lifetime. My wife, a history teacher, is finding more and more kids taking history and getting interested in WW1 and WW2.

    End of sermon... :D
     
  19. At Home Dad (Returning)

    At Home Dad (Returning) Well-Known Member

    That's right, Paul, and I seem to remember none of us had hardly any interest in the Viet nam War, which was fought all the way through our childhood!


    you've got to understand that anyone here who grew up between the 50s and 70s lived and breathed WW2. Our young culture was saturated with material on WW2, and many of us had fathers and grandfathers who were able to give us an insight into the 'real war' behind our childhood fascination.
     
  20. Sheila M

    Sheila M Member

    Fascinating topic. My dad (a driving instructor with the RASC) never got further than Salisbury Plain so his tales of WWII were mainly of how he crawled along the white lines in the middle of the road back to camp from the pub!

    As a teenage girl I started to read books on the RAF and their daring raids (I was an odd child - most of my friends were reading "Jackie" and other such publications!), but my real interest started when my husband took me on a "Beach" holiday in 2006 - Gold, Sword, Juno, Omaha and Utah. I walked on all the beaches and my husband brought all of it alive for me.
     

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