Was Harry Patch a victim?
As the moving funeral service showed, the answer to that must be NO, despite what he had been through as a very young man
The service was very well judged, I thought. Mr Patch had turned down the idea of anything fancy, but something more than a private burial by family & friends seemed called for. And so we had it in the beautiful Wells cathedral, with Where Have All the Flowers Gone sung by 15-year-old head chorister Folasade-Nelleke Lapido and a moving tribute from his friend Jim Ross, who called him “an ordinary man”
Many have commented on how such men tended never to speak of what they went through. Although, at least to begin with, this must have been their own choice, before we get too smug about it we should remember that the Sixties generation tended to treat such men with something approaching contempt – like Albert Tatlock in Coronation Street, boring on about his WWI. Their choice of jacket & tie, with grey or cavalry twill trousers, hat & highly polished shoes was mocked
By the time we got to significant anniversaries of WWII attitudes were changing - Percy Sugden was treated much more sympathetically, even though he was a bore
