The Meaning of Life?

I would, of course, be a very rich man if I knew the answer to the above title. But things that are happening in my life at the moment are giving me cause to think more about this conundrum.

I watched a TV programme today about the second world war and, more specifically, Dunkirk. Which, if you don't know, is where the British propaganda machine turned a total disaster into a victory.

Wars are a result of politics. I wish these problems could be sorted out by sending politicians out to fight each other, and I also wish that where there is famine, the leaders also starved, until the problem had been solved: if they too suffered the same as the people they inflict their stupidities on, I'm sure some of the world's problems would be resolved a lot sooner.

Today, as I watched this TV programme, an old man, the type no one would give a second glance to at a bus stop, told his story. He was small and slightly built, but a giant of courage and dignity. He told of his friends who stood by him as they fought for their lives. He fought back tears as he relived the nightmare of watching some of these comrades, young men fresh into adulthood, die.

He told of the happiness he felt when he married his childhood sweetheart just before he was sent away to France to face possible death. The thought of his young love at home helped him through his bleak times, but he worried that she might forget him and move on with her life. When he finally made it home. years after leaving, he walked unannounced to the telephone exchange where his young love worked. Still racked with fear of rejection, and that she would no longer love him the way she did. He walked into the exchange and stood in front of his wife and with tears in his eyes held out his arms. Within a heartbeat his fears disappeared as his wife held him and they both wept. He told this story reliving every second, every pain and finally he broke down as he spoke of his true love.

“It was as if I had lost something, something so dear, so important. It was as if I had lost something with which my life depended, and then I had found it again, it was there in my arms. I had travelled through hell and found heaven.”

This had me thinking about things which we take for granted. Last night, my wife and I chatted about this programme as it had an effect on me because of things that are happening within my family at the moment. I told her how strange it is that an inanimate object of no intrinsic value to anyone can, to us become priceless.

My wife's father lived in York and we would visit him once a week and take him shopping, then go for a pub lunch. He was a true gent and a true old-style Yorkshireman. He would not go out without his flat cap. This is a hat that was worn by lots of working-class Yorkshire men in days gone by. He could never remember where he had put his cap, and would spend time retracing his footsteps looking for it when we took him out.

I can still see him now in my mind walking around the supermarket linking arms with my wife looking totally uninterested in the shopping. He was a big man and you could see his cap bobbing up and down the aisles as he walked.

My wife's father died a few years ago now, strangely just a few months after my father died. But in my office hangs his flat cap, waiting for him to find it and put it on to go on our shopping trips. My father was a joiner a carpenter and a good one at that. Before he died he asked that my son, Lee should take his tools, because he said, “I know you will look after them”. To my father his tools summed up his identity, he was Peter Walsh the joiner. When he died, I called to my mother's, to fulfil his wish and pick up his tools, and we all cried as I carried his toolbox out as it was so symbolic as if I were carrying his coffin once again.

But through all the sadness and bile that we have to put up with in life there is also happiness. I watch my beautiful granddaughter play, while her parents talk of the future plans with joy and warmth. I am very fortunate to live a good life, I have what I need which, fortunately for me, is not that much really. I'm healthy, which is the most important thing, trust me.

I am able to write and speak out against things I feel are unjust, although there is no such thing as a totally free state but this does not stop me from saying what I feel I have a right to say!

And I have all this because of the man on the documentary, and because of men like my father and my wife's father.

The meaning of life is to find your own happiness whatever that may be. Then realise what you have and appreciate it and enjoy it. But remember, as you chase wealth and fortune, that, like my wife's father's flat cap, even the most worthless piece of cloth can become priceless, once you know the story behind it!