Our Desert Rat
12th November 2023
This is a photo of my Grandpa Harold, along with his father and two of his brothers.
Our mum’s dad, by the time I knew him he was a jovial older fellow (in fact, probably around my age – yikes). We bonded over early home computers and video games (he was ahead of his time on that front, I inherited many of my geekier tendencies from him). And we bonded over his storytelling – he loved to regale all his grandchildren with tales of his extraordinary experiences when he was younger.
His father is the gentleman sitting in the middle. His name was Israel. That’s just perfect, isn’t it? I got my Hebrew name, Chaim Yisrael, from him. Israel and Fanny Mail fled the pogroms of Odessa to establish a new life for their family in Scotland. By the time World War II began, Israel was too old to serve in the army, but served proudly in the home guard. His eldest son Sam, looking very dapper in the middle, was in the wartime fire brigade, and our Great Uncle Eddie quit his medical degree to become a tank driver for the Royal Scots Dragoons in India and Burma. Their youngest brother, our lovely Great Uncle Ronnie who only passed away last year, was too young to make the photo or the war, but did his national service in the RAF. Great men, every one.
Harold had stories of adventure, of far away lands, straight out of a Boys Own annual, because Harold was a Desert Rat. That’s him on the right - Sergeant Mail. Just a kid. He and his brothers-in-arms fought bravely in North Africa under Field Marshall Montgomery. Harold’s first period of combat ended at Dunkirk, when he failed to arrive in time for the boat that was supposed to evacuate him. That boat tragically sank, and Harold survived to pass his lateness gene on to future generations of Mail and Allon. Survival of the tardiest, I like to think.
Once back in North Africa, the war took him to Egypt and then to Palestine, then under the British Mandate, arriving there several years before the State of Israel was established. This had a profound effect on him, and engendered a life long love of Israel, and a passionate belief in the need for a Jewish nation state.
In an interview later in life, Harold spoke beautifully of his mixed identity,
“I went onto the beaches of Tel Aviv and I just put my hands through the sand…and I thought, my goodness, this is my land, my ancestors came from here, and tears started flowing through my eyes, it was a wonderful sensation that I get even here in Scotland. When I look out at Loch Lomond and I feel, this is another part of my culture…it’s a dual feeling that I have, this feeling for Israel and this feeling for Scotland.”
Israel and sons knew what they were fighting for. They fought to end the Nazi reign of terror in Europe, to shut down the death camps, to liberate the surviving Jewish and other victims of fascism. And they fought proudly and bravely for Britain and for the freedoms that many take for granted, and others seek to destroy.
Harold was a gentle man with a peaceful disposition who would have mourned the loss of every innocent life in the current conflict in Israel and in Gaza. But he also understood and lived the example that any country that values freedom and the security of its people has an obligation to fight to protect them.
I always remember my Grandpa Harold so fondly. But today, on Remembrance Sunday, I think of young Sergeant Mail, our Desert Rat, and I think of all those who fought the battles and won the wars which allow some to protest, and allow me to sit in comfort in North London and write my piece.