This year, as for many years, my wife and I will ring the church bills [in a six] for the service, before which my responsibility is to hoist the banner of St George over the church tower.
My father volunteered when he saw what was coming, RAFVR, gave "the best years of his life" in WW II, having flown his barrage balloon over Coventry in the Blitz [and the Coventry raid itself], the Suez Canal shipping on the ships, for three years, and the D-Day landings, again with his balloon trying to lift a ship out of the water.
His last few months before demob. were as a bar steward in the OM at RAF Machrihanish. Five years was a big chunk of a young man's life.
RIP dad.